


Snippets

by kaguneko (alittlecoco)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: (okay so more than a few are explicit whoops), Gen, M/M, Various AUs, but just to be safe i upped the rating, canonverse, individual chapters tagged, most chapters are teen+, only a few chapters are explicit, ranging from 500 words -2.5k, so as not to clog up the ao3 search, so you dont get put off (or get your hopes up too much), tumblr prompt fills, yumikuri in chapter 16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2018-12-01 13:12:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 31,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11487111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlecoco/pseuds/kaguneko
Summary: Things from the tungl. Because my blog is utter chaos. Fills, prompts, and short ficlets.





	1. Canonverse

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Kuroshitsuji Crossover AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12375420) by [takeapillifitmakesyoufeelbetter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/takeapillifitmakesyoufeelbetter/pseuds/takeapillifitmakesyoufeelbetter)



> 50\. “Stay the night?” 
> 
> from this delightful [prompts list](https://kaguneko.tumblr.com/post/162113223176/send-me-a-number-and-pairing-and-ill-write-you-a)
> 
> Sick Fic. Canon-typical mentions of blood and gore/horror. Pretty fleeting, though. Angst because, hello, canon-verse.

 

Levi noticed the grey tinge creeping up Erwin’s cheeks for days before the cough rattled at his chest.  

  
It reminded him of the way people looked in the Underground and he wondered if Erwin was as hyperaware of the caverns under their feet as Levi was, haunted by crumbling buildings crawling with people who fought to make it through one dark day after another.  Did they ever think of the three thugs and what had become of them, or had they had faded away into the gloom like ghosts?

  
These days, there was sun on Levi’s hair, memories trapped beneath his feet, and Erwin’s exhausted eyes gazing back at him.  People aboveground struggled to get through the days, same as the people under his feet; they were simply less aware of it.  Sunlight did that to people.  It brought the titans to life and lulled people into forgetting their troubles because life was nothing if not cruel.  Sometimes even Levi found himself slip-sliding into moments full of nothing beyond the sun’s warmth burning his nose red.  He didn’t think it would ever feel less incredible, just like he thought rainstorms would always feel like hell.

 

It had rained on the last expedition.  Water mixed with blood to make a thick, rusty paste that clung to the legs of their horses and flooded Levi’s chest, tightening around his lungs like an oversized fist set to crush him, to turn him to pulp and smear him through bloody dirt.  So he’d fixed his eyes on Erwin’s mud-splattered cape all the way back to the barracks.

  
At the stables he’d taken the reins of Erwin’s mare silently, flanking himself with wet horses to make a shield of their steaming bodies.  Erwin looked at him for a long moment as he handed over the reins.  Levi set his jaw and stared back.  His own horse shifted and nosed at his elbow, butting her head against his shoulder.  He put a hand on her nose to quiet her.  Erwin watched the mare fuss with Levi’s hand before nodding once.  

  
“Thank you, Levi,” he said slowly.  “I appreciate it.  I’ve got a lot of paperwork to start on.”  His eyes traveled over Levi’s face for few more careful moments before he turned on his heels and walked away.  His back was tall and straight as ever, despite the mud and gore dragging at his cloak, but Levi thought his strides looked shorter than usual, weary and clipped.

 

He passed Erwin’s office that night after he’d scrubbed the blood from under his fingernails and gotten the flecks of comrades out of his hair, after he’d polished his boots until no one would ever guess they’d just gotten back from beyond the walls.  

  
The light was still on, glowing through the crack under the door, though with the way the sky was turning from blue-black to grey, perhaps Erwin wouldn’t need the lamp much longer.

  
It had been a bad expedition.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Erwin lasted four days while Levi watched his eyes turn bloodshot and his hair wilt to fall across a forehead that Levi was certain shone with fever.

  
“Erwin,” he’d said that first morning.  “Go sleep.”  At noon the lamp was still on.  Levi didn’t know if Erwin even noticed.  He crossed his arms and stood in the doorway, ready for a fight.  His brain ached from lack of sleep and worry gnawed at his ribs.  It made him feel stretched too tight; the sensation filling out his skin in a way that was nearly, but not quite, familiar.

  
Erwin looked up with red-rimmed eyes and squinted.  “Levi,” he said, with the faintest note of surprise under his rusty voice.  He cleared his throat.  “Have you slept?”

  
Levi narrowed his eyes.  “Yeah. I’ve slept as much as you have.”

  
Erwin’s mouth pulled up at the corner and Levi thought if he wasn’t so worn out, Erwin would have laughed.  “Go get some rest.  I’ll need your help tonight.”  He glanced down at the papers strewn across his desk.  Death notifications.  “If you don’t mind.”

  
Levi didn’t mind.

 

On the second day, Mike came to speak with Erwin while Levi was checking Erwin’s gear.  Mike’s nostrils flared and he caught Levi’s eye across the room.  His lidded gaze was sharper than usual under his hair.  

  
Levi nodded curtly.  Even he could smell that Erwin was getting sick.  It seemed to crawl out of Erwin’s throat in noxious wisps that Levi could nearly see, that clung to Erwin’s shirt and followed Levi back to his room and made his skin crawl.  

  
He pushed cup after cup of his own tea on Erwin that afternoon.

 

On the third day, when they’d finished locating homes of the deceased soldiers, he put his foot down.  Erwin’s eyes had turned dull, verging on a grey that matched his pallor, and Levi realized that, at some point, he’d begun to associate Erwin’s eyes with the sky.  He didn’t like rainstorms and he didn’t want to see that color on Erwin’s face.  Levi wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he growled.

  
“Fuck’s sake, Erwin.  You’re being irresponsible.”

  
Erwin looked up from where he sat frowning over reports.  Clumpy strands of hair, turned dark by his sweat, stuck to his forehead and stood up at odd angles.  It would have been comic except that the sight of Erwin so rumpled was more distressing than Levi had expected.  In the year or so since he’d joined the Survey Corps, he didn’t think he’d ever seen Erwin sick.  Not once.  It made him feel like a fool to realize that part of himself had never considered the possibility that Erwin Smith could be tripped up by a cold.  

  
It was the sun, seeping into his brain and turning him too soft and too warm.

  
“What?” Erwin said, he blinked absently at Levi before turning back to the reports.  His shirt was crumpled.  

  
“Hey,” Levi said, leaning forward across the table slightly.  His voice came out brittle, so he coughed and hardened it.  “If you’re bedridden what will we do?  I’m not gonna go play hero for those assholes in the capital next week.”

  
Erwin glanced up in surprise, his eyes flickering bit brighter for a moment.  His nose wrinkled and he laughed, but it turned into a rattling, wet cough that made Levi press his fingers to the table hard, and grit his teeth.  “I’m sure you’d manage,” Erwin wheezed, wiping tears from where they oozed at the corners his eyes.  “But hell, I wouldn’t want to miss that.”

  
Irritation flickered red-hot and buzzing across Levi’s vision.  “This isn’t a fucking joke.”  The anger was threaded through with something icy, though, and it rolled into a sick sludge in his stomach.

  
Erwin cleared his throat and coughed again, a sharp bark.  He rubbed at his chest.  “I wasn’t joking, Levi.  I’m sure you could manage.  Somehow.”

  
Levi swallowed back bile.  “If you aren’t better by tomorrow, I’m getting Hanji,” he threatened.

  
“Oh, no anything but that.”  Erwin’s eyes were still bright with tears from his coughing fit and the self-deprecating humor Levi understood, but had no idea what to do with.

 

On the fourth day, Levi found Erwin face-down at his desk with the sunset turning his hair reddish gold where it wasn’t damped to brown at his temples.

  
Levi let the door slam behind him and was across the office as fast as if he were using his gear.  “Erwin,” he hissed.  “Erwin, Erwin.   _Fuck_.”  He shook Erwin’s shoulders rougher than he meant.  “Open your eyes, you big stupid shit.”  Ice sat heavy in his stomach and froze his veins.

  
Erwin huffed and tried to swat Levi’s hand away, but he missed and his hand knocked against the corner of his desk when he let it fall back into his lap, hard enough that Levi knew it would bruise, but Erwin didn’t flinch.  He smelled sweet and sick and sour.  It wasn’t the same way corpses smelled, but it carried a threat that made Levi want to raise hackles.

  
“Erwin,” Levi snapped.  He put his hand to Erwin’s forehead.  Erwin huffed again and pressed back against Levi’s palm.

  
“Cold,” he sighed.  

  
“Yeah, well a goddamn forest fire would seem cold compared to you right now.  You idiot.”  Anger was running up Levi’s spine again, hot as Erwin’s fever.  “You fucking idiot. _Erwin_.”

  
Erwin cracked open an eye, all gummy and swollen, and gazed hazily at the room rather than at Levi.  “That’s a bit harsh.”  He swallowed hard and his shoulders shook, and Levi realized he was trying to hold in a cough.

  
“Erwin,” Levi said again, softer.  Erwin’s hair was wet under his hand and he didn’t know what to say.

  
“Levi,” Erwin returned, teasing gently.  He raised a brow and shifted enough to look up at Levi.  Levi thought for a moment that he looked half-dead.  But then he thought:  No, Erwin looked horrifyingly human, alive but so fragile.

  
“You’re going to bed.  Right now.”  He pulled his hand back, but the heat of Erwin’s fever clung to him.

  
Erwin didn’t protest this time.

 

Getting Erwin from his office to his room took so long that Levi’s nerves felt alight with painful tension, sanded thin and breakable.  He set his jaw, furious, and stared straight ahead.

  
“Levi,” Erwin said, when they nearly reached his quarters.  He leaned heavily on Levi’s shoulder.

  
Levi huffed through his nose and tried not to gnash his teeth together.  He was—he was absolutely irate, as he rarely was, and hell if he knew why.  Not understanding why he was so goddamn angry just made him _more_ angry, until he wasn’t even sure it was Erwin he was pissed at anymore.

  
“Levi,” Erwin said again, and stopped his awkward shuffle.  “I can make it the rest of the way myself.”  Levi snapped his gaze up to Erwin with a snarl ready.  Erwin smiled into his rage.  “Thank you,” he said.  He shoulders shook again as he tried to stifle a cough.  Levi could feel the force of the cough Erwin held back rocking his own body where they were pressed together.

  
“Like hell,” Levi huffed.

  
The cough made its way out of Erwin’s chest in the form of a ragged laugh.

 

Erwin was shivering when he collapsed on his bed in his nightclothes.

  
“God fucking dammit,” Levi muttered, debating how quickly he could get Hanji.  Five minutes he reckoned—five minutes there, two minutes of tugging Hanji away from their project, five minutes to get back.  Too long, that was too—

  
“Levi, it’s fine.”  Erwin had sprawled on top of his covers, apparently too exhausted to make it under the blankets despite the way shudders crawled all over his body and gooseflesh stood up along his arms.

  
Levi growled and shoved at the bedcovers, tugging Erwin’s heavy limbs until he was mostly tucked into bed.  “It’s _not_ fine.”

  
Erwin smiled, eyes closed, and said, “It is.  It’s just a cold.”  His lips were cracked.  Levi needed to get him water.  He clenched his hands into fists and glared at Erwin’s splotchy face even though the man couldn’t see him.  “I’ve had colds before,” Erwin murmured.

  
Levi looked at the way he tried to curl six feet of solid muscle impossibly further into the mattress. “Yeah? Like this?”  

  
Erwin peered blearily at Levi from under sweat-dark hair.  “This is admittedly one of the worst ones I’ve had,” he said, “but at least I’m not vomiting.”

  
“That’s it.  I’m getting Hanji.”  Levi spun to leave the room and then remembered Erwin’s crackled lips.  “Shit.  First I’m getting you water.”  He stormed off to the bathroom instead.

  
When he returned with a pitcher, Erwin was sitting up, slumped against the headboard.

  
“For fuck’s sake,” Levi said, voice climbing high and nearly desperate.  “Will you just _rest_?”  He moved to push Erwin back down against the pillows.

  
Erwin smiled faintly.  “I need to sit up to drink.”

  
Levi felt his ears turn pink, and suddenly he was so damn mad and drained and felt like such an idiot that he wanted to curl up into a ball himself.

  
“I’m sorry,” Erwin said.  Levi watched his hand shake as he drank the water Levi offered him.

  
“What for?”

  
“For upsetting you.”  Erwin’s eyes were dull and gritty when he gazed at Levi over the rim of the cup and all the fight went out of Levi.

  
Levi sighed.  “I’m not upset.”  His own hand shook when he took the cup back from Erwin.  What he _wanted_ was for Erwin to apologize for letting himself get so sick.

  
Erwin nodded.  “I’m sorry all the same.”  He looked about a minute away from passing out, so Levi pressed at his shoulder, wincing when he felt the heat radiating through Erwin’s shirt.  Erwin went down willingly, head thumping heavily onto his pillows.

  
Levi laid a hand across his forehead.  Erwin closed his eyes and sighed.

  
“Cold,” he said again.  He looked so damn tired.

  
“My hands are always cold,” Levi muttered, but he didn’t pull his hand away.  For a wild moment he wanted to trace the lines around Erwin’s eyes.  He pushed the damp hair back from Erwin’s forehead instead.  It looked uncomfortable.  “I’m gonna get you a wet cloth,” he said.

  
Erwin frowned with his eyes still closed.  “Your hand was fine.”

  
“You’re a mess,” Levi grumbled.  He turned to refill the pitcher and wet a cloth.

  
“Stay the night?”

  
Levi froze.  Erwin’s voice had been so raspy and faint maybe he misheard.

  
“Levi?”

  
He turned to look at Erwin.  His eyes were open, though his hair was tangled and caught at his lashes.  He looked a bit like he had the first time Levi saw him, staring up at Levi in the Underground, boyish and wide-eyed.  

 

“Sorry?” Levi’s mouth formed the words on its own, since he didn’t know where his voice had gone. He thought it probably got lost in the rush of his heartbeat to his ears.

  
“Stay?”  Erwin huffed out a breath and his mouth twisted with a bit of that self-deprecating humor Levi wasn’t sure how to respond to.  “Please.”

  
Levi blinked.  “Fine.

  
Erwin blinked back.  “Okay,” he said.  He sounded surprised.

  
“You better not puke.”

  
Erwin’s eyes slipped shut again, but he smiled more genuinely.  “I won’t vomit.”

  
“Mmph,” Levi grunted, and then retreated to the bathroom.  His stomach rolled, but it wasn’t gurgling with that cold, worried sludge anymore.  It felt hot like Erwin’s forehead and light like his body when he sailed through the trees.

 

 


	2. Modern AU: Hot Neighbors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5\. “Care to dance?” 
> 
> same lovely [prompts list](https://kaguneko.tumblr.com/post/162113223176/send-me-a-number-and-pairing-and-ill-write-you-a)
> 
> Hot Neighbor Modern AU. Plot-twist: they’re both the hot neighbor.  
> I’m so weak for older!Levi and slightly flustered, head-over-heels Erwin.

 

 

Levi had little feet.

  
Erwin didn’t know why that startled him so much.  Hell, _all_ of Levi was little.  But he couldn’t stop staring at Levi’s feet, pale and bare and half the size of Erwin’s own.

  
Music drifted through his open window into the kitchen; one of their neighbors seemed to be throwing a late-summer party.  Muted shouts and splashing twisted in with the bass, but the noise faded beneath Erwin’s spiraling thoughts of whether Levi’s feet would be as soft as they appeared, and how their palms would look pressed together.  Would his hand swallow Levi’s whole?  

 

His neighbor—his beautiful, tiny, abrasive neighbor—was standing in his kitchen and Erwin didn’t know what to do. 

 

 

So he cleared his throat.  “Would you like a drink?” he tried.  He gestured vaguely to his fridge.

  
Levi looked up from where he was leaning against Erwin’s counter, watching his own feet, making the tendons dance just under that ridiculously delicate-looking skin.  He shrugged.  “Sure.  It’s hot out.”

  
When Erwin handed Levi a can of soda, their fingers brushed and Levi didn’t flinch.  

  
Erwin leaned next to him against the counter, close enough that he could feel Levi’s body heat radiating against his arm.  It was nice.  It felt different than the humid air, lively and electric where as the heat of the summer sat heavy on his chest.

  
“Thanks for coming over,” Erwin offered, fumbling again for conversation.  He looked sideways at his neighbor.  

  
Levi licked soda from his lips and watched his feet.  “Sure,” he said, pressing his toes against Erwin’s cool linoleum floor.  Erwin thought the corner of his mouth turned up a little, though.   

  
Erwin’s gaze drifted to Levi’s hands, wrapped around the sweating aluminum can.  His fingers were calloused and tough from gardening, and his nails were clipped too short.  “How’re your plants doing this summer?” he said, unthinking as the words tumbled out of his mouth to follow his train of thought.  His neck instantly heated at the memory of Levi with sweat tracking through the dirt on his face.  He had a farmer’s tan like nothing Erwin had ever seen and Erwin knew he was fucked because he found it endlessly sexy.

  
The corner of Levi’s mouth was definitely curling up.  It was subtle, but Erwin had had to tear his gaze away from Levi’s mouth enough to be able to pick up on the difference, on the softening of his frown.  “They’re fine,” Levi said.  His voice was warm when he talked about his garden, more like the sun than his wintry stare let on.  “How are yours?”  He swung his gaze up to Erwin and a proper smirk tugged at his mouth.

  
Erwin coughed, “They’ve been better.”

  
Levi’s eyes narrowed with amusement as he forgot to be shy.  “Have they?”

  
Erwin shook his head and swallowed.  Levi had nice teeth, he thought faintly.

  
Levi’s eyes flickered to Erwin’s throat and he seemed to remember himself.  His eyes shuttered back to cool watchfulness and his ears turned pink.  “I could help,” he hedged, leaning back against the counter and taking a sip of his soda.  “Some of the plants are fucked, but there are a bunch you would save.  You know—” he paused and looked at his feet, flexing his toes, before glancing sideways up at Erwin with the hint of a smirk curving his mouth again. “There are hardier ones you can plant that even you couldn’t kill.”

  
Erwin laughed harder than he meant and Levi’s eyes widened before he ducked his head.

  
“I’d like that.”  His voice sounded overly warm to his own ears, but Levi didn’t look at him strangely.  Erwin thought his beautiful neighbor was more lonely than he’d admit and not nearly the misanthropist he appeared.

  
Levi peaked up at him.  “Okay.”

  
“Okay,” Erwin returned, grinning.  He let his weight sag against the counter.  His arm brushed Levi’s—bare elbow against bicep.  Levi looked at the open window where the music swelled louder and he shifted, infinitesimally but monumentally, to press back against Erwin.  Erwin bit his tongue to avoid saying “Okay,” again with surprised pleasure.

  
He swallowed down his heart and allowed himself a grin.

  
“Stop making that face,” Levi grumbled.  “It’s creepy.”

  
Erwin smiled wider and let more of his weight rest against Levi.  Levi’s hair tickled his arm and he felt like a teenager.

  
Someone up the road shouted and apparently cranked the volume on the music  because it suddenly sounded like the party was just outside their window.  An old tune from high school blared and Erwin really was a teenager again for the span of a song.  The moment was one of those perfect ones that Erwin recognized and saluted because they came so rarely and he wanted to bookmark them in his memory to revisit again and again.

  
“Levi,” he asked around his heartbeat and the stupid grin on his face.  “Care to dance?”  He laughed slightly breathy at himself before putting his untouched soda on the counter and stepping into the middle of his kitchen.

  
“What?” Levi said.  He looked from Erwin’s outstretched hand to his lopsided grin.

  
Erwin cocked his head. “Dance with me?” He wiggled his fingers.

  
“Don’t be stupid,” Levi huffed, but he was moving forward to place a frigid hand into Erwin’s.  His knobby fingers made Erwin’s unworked ones feel like they could tear.

  
Levi let Erwin lead him in a sloppy waltz.  He stepped on Erwin’s toes with his little feet and knocked their knees together, and Erwin was positive Levi could feel, if not hear, his heart shuddering in his ribs.  But when Erwin looked down at the top of his head, the tips of Levi’s ears were pink where they stuck out of his hair, and when song ended Levi didn’t pull away. 

  
Levi was still at his house that night when a noise complaint caused police lights through the window to illuminate Erwin’s living room ghostly blue and red.  Erwin thought the flickering lights suited Levi’s farmer’s tan just fine

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I maybe already have another wee thing planned for this au. God I need help.


	3. Vampire AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 45\. “I need a favor.”
> 
> Vampire AU, modern times. Same wonderful prompts list :)
> 
>  
> 
> Baby you need to leave,  
> ‘Cause I’m getting drunk on your noble deeds.  
> It doesn’t matter that they don’t get done,  
> When I feel this cold they’re like the fucking sun.
> 
> Baby I need a friend,  
> But I’m a vampire smile, you’ll meet a sticky [end](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNNEKKacUZQ).
> 
> -Vampire Smile, Kyla La Grange

 

 

 

“Hanji,” Levi hissed.  “Hanji, I need a favor.”

  
“Oh?  Is this something I can lord over your head?”  They sounded delighted on the other end of the line.

  
The man on Levi’s couch shifted into the circle of lamplight.  His fair hair gleamed.  “For the rest of my life,” Levi muttered.

  
Hanji whooped.  “Name it.”

  
“I need a box.”

  
“A box…”

  
“Yeah.  A big one.  Made of wood.  Or—um, something sturdy.  Maybe about six and a half feet long.”  The man snorted.

  
“You need…a coffin?”

  
“You don’t have to put it like that.”

  
“Levi, did you kill someone?”

  
“Fuck no.  If I did, I’d be dumping the body in the woods and skipping town, not calling you for a goddamn coffin.”  Levi’s fingers ached where they gripped his phone too tight.

  
“That’s—not reassuring.”  

  
Levi could hear Hanji clicking their pen in the background.  “Can you get me one?” he asked. 

  
“By when?”

  
“By sunrise.”

  
“Levi, what the fuck.”

  
“Can you?”

  
“Yeah. Yeah, I can.”

  
Levi sighed.  “I owe you, Hanji.”

  
The pen clicked faster.  “Don’t mention it.  To anyone, ever.”  They paused.  “Levi?”

  
“Yeah?”

  
“Be careful.”  Hanji sounded worried, which might have been a first. “Please be careful.”

  
“You too,” Levi muttered and hung up the phone, shoving it back into his pocket.  The silver knife in his fist was slippery with sweat.  He shifted it to his other hand and wiped his palm on his jeans.  “Alright,” he growled at the man on his couch, “What’s your deal?”  He raised the knife so it caught the lamplight and glinted.

  
The man’s eyes tracked the arc of the knife and his lips pulled back to reveal teeth that dragged a shudder up Levi’s spine before he could hide it.  The man watched the slight tremor in Levi’s arm, then he met his eyes and licked at his canines pointedly.  “Well, I’m on the run, as I told you.”  His voice was an amused purr.

  
“Yeah.  You said.”  Levi took a step closer and bared his own teeth.  The man seemed to appreciate his daring, as he settled to lounge against Levi’s couch and spread his arms out along the back, offering Levi a straight shot to his chest.  “You also said you were a vampire.”

  
The man tilted his head.  “And you invited me in.”

  
“And ordered you a fucking coffin.”  Levi hefted the old silver heirloom, trying to maintain feeble grip on reality.  “Will this kill you?”

  
“Probably,” said the vampire, considering the dulled blade.  “If you hit my heart.  Or you could cut off my head and stuff my mouth with garlic.  If that’s too much, a wooden stake will do.  I’m sure you could find a stick outside.”  He offered Levi a charming smile.

  
Levi narrowed his eyes and took another step closer, not quite willing to stop himself.  The vampire was beautiful, but so were cobras.  “What are you playing at?”

  
“Nothing.”  The vampire smiled wider and Levi thought maybe panther was a better comparison.  A deadly panther with forget-me-not eyes.

  
Levi let the knife catch the light again. “I could kill you.”

  
“I could kill you.”  The vampire was enjoying this.

  
Levi was just out of striking range now.  He wanted to jam the edge of the knife against the vampire’s throat to see if it really would burn him.  “Why won’t you?”

  
The vampire shrugged, eyes flickering to where Levi’s pulse thrummed frantically in his neck.  “I need your help.”

  
Levi narrowed his eyes and said, “And why wouldn’t I kill _you_?”

  
The vampire bared his teeth completely, on a grin that served as a threat, while his eyes danced over Levi’s face, skipping his neck entirely to rest on his heart.  “That’s your choice, not mine.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops I love this 'verse...


	4. Canonverse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7\. “Who do you think you are?”
> 
> Same list. Bless that list.
> 
> Canon-verse Angst/Grieving. But also Fluff because, hello, it’s me. Developing Friendships. Post-ACWNR, Pre-canon.

 

 

 

It had been three months.  

  
Levi could feel the number rolling around in his head, knocking against his skull, sharp-edged and painful.  It must have cut too deep because when a little girl with a bobbing reddish ponytail darted in front of him, narrowly missing hooves and wheels, he froze.  Someone collided with his back and spat, “Fucking watch it, freak.”  The man smelled cloying, like perfume and rot, when he shoved past Levi and shot his uniform a look more filthy than his stringy hair.  Levi turned on his heel and returned to his quarters without getting any of the supplies he needed from town.

  
Three months above-ground, three months back in the ground—turned to dirt to fertilize that pretty grass that matched Isabel’s eyes. 

 

  
His quarters were huge, his bed large enough to fit three bodies easily.  It was a waste to shower so much on one person, but at least it was quiet.  When Levi let the heavy door swing shut behind him, he didn’t have to answer veiled questions or feel the hero-worship mixed with murky hatred burning against the back of his neck.  Still though, the bed was big enough for three and Levi slept in the chair.

  
His floor was spotless, but he scrubbed it until his knuckles cracked and his knees bruised because he still didn’t have a damn clue what to do with free time.  Days off were a lot like dancing over a pit of snapping jaws.  So long as Levi kept dangling, swinging from place to place, Isabel and Farlan couldn’t sink their teeth into his heels.  But, god, sometimes he wanted to let them.  He scrubbed one spot on the floor hard enough that his knuckles bled.

  
Someone rapped at his door—sharp knocks, precise.  Levi stood with long inhale and a sighed exhale.  He knew those knocks.  They all knocked differently.  He bet they never even thought of that, what a give-away such thoughtless habits were.  This person might, though.  If anyone else noticed a detail like that, it would be Erwin.

  
Levi was slow to open his door, shoving six months back into the pit and ignoring the way it scraped the wounds in his mind on the way down.

  
“Levi.”  Erwin greeted him with a nod when Levi got the door open far enough to fit his own body through, but not enough for anyone larger to push their way into his private quarters.  He kept his hand braced against the wood.

  
“What,” Levi said.  A large part of himself hoped Erwin needed help with something; it would be a good way to fill his evening.  But Erwin was dressed in the clothes he wore when he went into town—black pants, black jacket, fine linen shirt—and Levi didn’t feel like going back there today.  

  
Erwin looked at the space between Levi’s eyes for a moment and then he tilted his head.  “How are your hands?”

  
“What?” Levi tightened his grip on the door.  His knuckles throbbed.

  
“I brought something for your hands.”  Erwin lifted his own hands up into Levi’s line of vision.  He was holding a tub of something expensive-looking.  When he realized Levi wasn’t going to say anything, he continued.  “It’s cream.  For dry skin and wounds.  It’s quite good, I use it sometimes.”

  
Levi glanced at Erwin’s smooth hands dwarfing the tub of cream and snorted.  “I’m sure you do.  Why?”

  
“…Did I bring you cream?”  Erwin was looking at the space between Levi’s brows again, and then down to the corner of his frown.

  
“No.  Why do you rub that shit on your hands.”

  
Erwin regarded him calmly for a moment and then said, “I brought it because Mike said you were rough today.”

  
Levi’s finger flexed against the wood frame.  “Tell Mike he can shove that cream up his ass.”

  
Erwin’s mouth twitched.  “May I see your hands?”

  
“No.”

  
Erwin didn’t flinch as Levi closed the door in his face.

  
Levi hadn’t made it more than a few disgruntled steps away when three precise knocks tapped at his door again.

  
Levi opened the door very slowly to hide his confused irritation.  “What,” he said.

  
Erwin held out the cream and smiled.  “I would appreciate it if you took the cream.”

  
“Why?  Because you spent a lot of money on it?”

  
Erwin shook his head, unruffled as ever in the face of Levi’s distain.  “No, because you need it and I want to give it to you.”

  
“Who—” Levi swallowed, “ _Who_ do you think you are?” He made a fist of his hands as he snarled, splitting his knuckles further, to barely prevent _You aren’t my friend_ from spewing like venom across the distance between them.  All his friends were dead.  “I don’t want your favors,” he spat.  Erwin watched him suck a painful inhale and push the howling jaws back into their place in the pit. 

 

“You’re bleeding,” Erwin said when Levi eased his snarl into a scowl.  He nodded with his chin at Levi’s raw knuckles, oozing and clenched against his thighs.  “If you damage your hands, you won’t be able to fight.”  He didn’t say it like a threat, just a quiet statement of the obvious.

  
Levi unclenched his fists; his fingers felt stiff as they unfurled at his sides.  “How did you know about my hands?”

  
Erwin still held the tub out in front of himself like he could do it for hours.  “Like I said, Mike told me you were rough.”

  
“Yeah, so?”

  
Erwin smiled again, but this one looked less like he was selling something.  “You always clean when you’re troubled.”

  
Levi plucked the cream from his hands and closed the door in his face.  Erwin didn’t knock on his door again that night.

  
  
Later, years later, Erwin would rub the cream into Levi’s hands himself, and kiss his fingertips, and tell him the scarred up mess of his skin was beautiful, but in the meantime, Levi that found applying the cool cream to his knuckles every night was a soothing ritual.  It smelled nice, clean.  Better than the corpses that haunted him in his too-large bed, at any rate.  He caught whiffs of it on Erwin sometimes when they sparred.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to come say hi in the [tungl](https://kaguneko.tumblr.com) :)


	5. Kuroshitsuji Crossover AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 41\. “Is this some kind of fetish?”
> 
> same list :)
> 
> Kuroshitsuji AU, NSFW, rather dark—you know, demons and tragic backstories and Kuro-typical violence/minor-villian death. Straight-up Demon Trash. Some low-key, consensual blood-play. Sappiness. Essentially PWP.
> 
> this [art](http://pandanoi.tumblr.com/post/93319356853/anonymous-said-whispers-au-where-erwin-is)...this art kills the man

 

 

Erwin figured society was as doomed as he thought if no one had noticed by now that Levi wasn’t human.

  
Reddish eyes glinted through cigar smoke, first lighting on Erwin’s face, waiting for his subtle nod, then cutting to fix on the man sprawled in his armchair like it was a throne.  Except his fingers twitched against the armrests and his eyes were red-rimmed and puffy as they darted between Erwin and his butler, more like a ratlike than kingly.  Then again, Erwin thought that most kings _were_ rats, so maybe it was all the same—which was perhaps unfair to the rodents as he’d met a fair few clever ones in cargo hulls.  

 

Erwin could smell the man’s nervous sweat, tangy over the thick tobacco, and it was exceedingly unpleasant.  The way Levi slunk across the parlor wasn’t, though.  Not at all.

  
Erwin placed his cigar in an ashtray and admired the hair-raising grace of Levi’s swinging hips and silent stride.  He ran a finger over the tear in his thick wool trousers where one of Vanel’s men had managed to catch his leg with a knife.  Levi would be irritated, he thought.  

  
“Well then,” Erwin tore his eyes way from Levi’s predatory slink.  “I think that’ll conclude our negotiations, Vanel.  Thank you very much for taking the time to meet with me today.”  Erwin leaned back in the leather chair and watched the rat squirm and sputter.

  
“We haven’t finished.”  Vanel gripped the edges of his chair and seemed to try to shove himself away from Levi’s advance while simultaneously leaning towards Erwin, urgent in his panic.  His heels dug into the plush carpet.  “You haven’t heard what I have to offer.”  He spit a bit when he talked, little flecks of silva spraying his own knees.  Erwin tried to repress a smile at the blatant repulsed sound Levi made.

  
Erwin waved his hand and then picked up his cigar, rolling it between his fingers.  “You don’t have a thing to offer me,” he said.  Though the cigars were rather high quality.

  
“I—”

  
“You don’t.  Neither the Queen nor I want to deal with the likes of you.  I simply needed a confession for her Majesty’s peace of mind.  Legality.”  He looked at Levi and raised a brow, gave a nod.  “ _I_ don’t particularly care what you have to say.”

  
Erwin had found that if someone  _did_ eventually realize Levi wasn’t human, they shrieked enough to wake the dead.  He liked to watch the feathers drift through hushed silence when Levi was done.

 

* * *

 

“He was disgusting,” Levi said in the carriage as they rode back to Erwin’s townhouse.  It was late in the evening and they’d been gone for over a day, locating Vanel and then clawing their way through his estate.  Erwin felt filthy, stubbled and stale, but the grime came with the bone-deep satisfaction that always lingered after fights.  That came from glancing down to his right and unfailingly finding Levi guarding his weak spot, fangs bared and eyes flickering to red. 

  
“He was,” Erwin agreed.  Levi wrinkled his nose and glared at that tear in Erwin’s trousers.  His eyes had settled back into stormy grey, but they always seemed tinged slightly bloody, like looking up at a sunset from underwater, or, perhaps more accurately, how Erwin remembered the color of ocean while it writhed with sharks and sinking lifeboats.

  
“Usually you don’t toy with them so much,” Levi said.  “What was in the Queen’s letter that bothered you?”  He tilted his head.

  
Erwin tapped his breast pocket, indicating Levi could reach into his jacket and read the letter himself.  Levi just shrugged though, and Erwin was disappointed he didn’t brush his fine, gloved hands against his chest.  Levi’s gaze was already slipping lidded and impassive again, and he turned to glance through the crack in the curtains.

  
“I trust you.”

  
Erwin ached for him.

 

* * *

 

“Is this some kind of fetish for you?”

  
“You mean, like your fixation with my feet?”

  
“Your hands, too.” Erwin groaned and let his head loll to the side, exposing the length of his throat.  Levi had nicked him while shaving his jaw, and Erwin knew it wasn’t accidental.  

  
Levi’s cold nose brushed under his ear and then his hot, wet tongue flicked at the welling blood.  He’d straddled Erwin’s hips, pinning him to sit sprawled across the floor of his bathroom, with a weight heavier than his frame belied.

  
“It’s your nails,” Erwin sighed.  Although he quietly loved washing Levi’s feet, awkward and one-handed while Levi’s soles pressed against his thighs.  The demon always looked such a mess of tentative arousal when Erwin ran warm cloths over his ankles and toes—and Levi was very rarely unsteady.

  
Levi pulled back to frowned at Erwin.  “My nails?”  His gaze fixed on Erwin’s uncovered mark where it burned blood-red against his iris.  It matched the smear at Levi’s lips. 

  
Erwin tilted his head back further, knocking against cold tub behind them, until Levi’s attention latched back onto the thin trickle of blood.  He drifted forward, pupils enormous and irises melting to red, to scrape sharp teeth and a soft tongue against Erwin’s skin.  

  
Erwin sighed and brought his hand up to press at the corner of Levi’s mouth, slipping past his lips so he could run his thumb along a pointed canine.  He swallowed a sigh and pressed the pad of his finger against the tip.  Levi’s tongue worked past his thumb as he lapped at the dribbles of blood, insistent.  

  
“Yeah,” Erwin remembered to answer, “your nails.”  He was hard against Levi and Levi knew it.  “You could change them to look more human, but you don’t.”

  
Levi grunted and pulled back, letting Erwin’s thumb fall from his mouth.  He licked the blood from his lips, lashes drooping heavy over his eyes, and shuddered when Erwin licked his own blood from his thumb.  

  
“You like that,” he drawled, though his eyes hid some surprise under that shadowed fall of his lids.

  
“The taste?” Erwin asked.  His brain was slipping hazy as Levi began to drag black-clawed nails over his bare chest.  He was losing control of the conversation. 

  
Levi watched the path his nails took, his marked hand drifting to brush again Erwin’s scarred, missing limb, the other drawing an achingly slow circle around Erwin’s nipple.  “No, that I’m a monster.”

  
Erwin gripped Levi’s hip, legs twitching beneath his little body.  His back was arching, body pressing into Levi’s deadly hands as if he were a marionette, but he hardly gave a fuck.  “You’re less a monster than a lot of men I’ve known,” Erwin said, with blood in his mouth and his cock pressing hot and heavy up against the demon. 

  
Levi rolled his eyes, catlike pupils blown wide enough to look human.  His attention caught on the contract seal in Erwin’s eye again and his lips pulled up to reveal his sharp little fangs.  “Stop including yourself, asshole.”

 

* * *

 

“It is a… a thing,” Levi hissed later.  He ran his nose along Erwin’s chest, not seeming to mind the sweat dampening curling blond hair.

  
“What is?” Erwin asked, but he wasn’t at all sure Levi could understand his rasping attempt at speech.  “What’s a thing?” he tried again.  His stomach was covered in his own cum, smeared across his roping scars, and his cock too spent to do more than twitch pathetically while his thighs shivered against Levi’s hips.  

 

Levi was always like this after a kill, devouring Erwin with his fanged mouth and sharp tongue the way he ate souls, and then fucking him until Erwin had groaned himself hoarse and shook from overstimulation.

  
“The bathing,” Levi snarled, pushing into Erwin between each bitten out word, “the grooming, the blood.”

  
“Okay,” Erwin panted.  “Alright.  Is fucking me to within an inch of my life also part of this fetish?”  

  
Levi growled and shoved his hips hard against Erwin, rolling his pelvis in a heavy grind when he bottomed out.  Erwin’s back arched and he fumbled to reach out with two hands for Levi, stomach dropping like he was falling when he lurched sideways, off-balanced.  Levi pressed him back flat to the bed. 

  
“Don’t move,” he snarled. 

  
Erwin swallowed a moan, reorienting himself around the feeling of Levi moving in his body and shoving away memories of the bloody ocean.  “Why?”  He bit his lips against a loud cry when Levi ran a nail along his sticky cock.  “Why’s it a fetish?”

  
“Because—” Levi shot him a rather baleful glare, apparently regretting speaking, though the way his lashes fluttered damped the effect slightly.   _I wish I could lie_ , was etched into the downturn of his mouth, and _I want to eat you alive_ , flared red in his eyes.  “Because you’re human,” he finally said.  He shoved his hands up under Erwin’s thighs and pressed them apart. 

  
“ _Levi_ ,” Erwin groaned.  The overstimulation was knife-sharp pleasure verging on pain.  He arched his back again, trying to find some relief from the relentless push-and-pull of Levi’s cock in his body.  If he was a bit younger…

  
Levi bared his teeth and dipped to bite Erwin’s belly, licking at a scar.  His back curved so elegantly Erwin’s breath caught.  “You’re human, and you’re stupidly breakable and smell like shit when you haven’t bathed.”  His voice was strained.  “But you’re _mine_.  Your blood is mine.”  He shuddered out a growl, eyes burning all wintry fire, and Erwin could feel his cock stiffening inside his body.  “You’re _mine_ , Erwin.  Mine to save and mine to kill.”

  
Erwin whined low; his throat ached and he thought he might come again, limp and exhausted as he was.  He fumbled and reached for Levi’s hand, shoved his thumb hard enough against Levi’s contract mark that a human’s bones would have cracked.  If Erwin had another hand, he’d have wrapped it around Levi’s neck to feel his pulse flutter, so insanely human, against the pads of his fingers.

  
The faintest smile pulled at Levi’s lips.  “Yeah,” he panted, hips stuttering.  “Yes,” he groaned.  He came with a mournful little howl when Erwin pulled his hand up and kissed the mark, licking at the raised scar-tissue that made up the spindly lines.

  
Erwin hoped to hell Levi was fucking him when he finally took his soul.  That would be a better death than he deserved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again...I uh, maybe have a WIP of this... 
> 
> WIPS for days and days.


	6. Western AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 23\. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
> 
> You guessed it, bless that prompts list <3
> 
> Guns and depictions of violence, blood, Western AU

 

Erwin adjusted his suspenders once more in the cloudy mirror and made sure the bolo tie hung straight before flashing Levi a grin over his shoulder.  Levi had glowered at his back the entire time Erwin dressed—slipping his too-long legs into too-tight pants, donning shoes they couldn’t afford and a shirt so white it reminded Levi of bleached skeletons in the desert.

  
“These are pretty comfortable, actually.  You should try wearing them sometime.”  Erwin’s lips curled into a suggestion and he turned all the way around, playfully snapping the suspenders. 

  
“Don’t,” Levi snarled. “This is, without a doubt, the worst _fucking_ —” he paused to suck a sticky breath because the tremor in his voice made him sick.  He swallowed.  “Erwin, this is the worst idea I’ve ever heard.  And you’ve had some bad ones.”  

  
Erwin’s grin pulled wider like the accusation pleased him endlessly and fuck, it probably did.  Levi ignored how good he looked in civilian clothes, keeping his gaze far above the way the trousers pulled taut over Erwin’s thighs.  Levi knew all the little fibers that knitted bodies together—where to stab, where to bruise, what to carve on an animal and what to chuck—and Erwin’s body was made of the same easily torn gristle, nothing more.  Levi told himself that again and again.  

  
“You’re not even carrying a gun.”  Levi’s hands curled into desperate fists at his side.

  
“Well Lobov wouldn’t, would he.”

  
“ _Fuck_ Lobov.”

  
Erwin laughed.  “That’s exactly the point.”  His eyes were bright with that manic energy his presence shivered with before a raid.

  
Levi looked away.  “How am I supposed to protect you if you refuse to protect yourself?”  He could hardly hear himself over the adrenalin flooding his brain, rushing behind his eyes.  He closed his lips against whispering, _What if I’m not fast enough, Erwin?  What the fuck then?_ He’d asked before and he didn’t want to hear Erwin’s answer again.

  
A warm finger tapped his chin, risking Levi’s gritted teeth, coaxing until Levi was looking at eyes that matched the bolo tie he’d stolen for Erwin two days ago.

  
“I trust you.”  Erwin’s voice didn’t catch in his chest the way Levi’s did.

  
“They’ll never buy it.”

  
“I’m persuasive.”

  
“You’re a suicidal bastard.”  Levi nudged his face up and squeezed his eyes shut, forehead pressed to Erwin’s lips hard enough to bruise.  He felt Erwin smile.

 

* * *

 

Levi stayed with their horses.  He kept his eyes trained on Erwin’s sleek blond head as the man’s steps turned from predatory to well-to-do in a fluid stride.  It was afternoon, hot as hell, and the bar was quiet.  Just the tinkle of glass and an occasional bray of laughter reached Levi’s straining ears.

  
Sweat rolled in fat drips down his spine to collect at his waistband.  With each heartbeat, Levi expected to hear gunshots.  The doors swung open and auburn hair caught the sun as slight woman stepped out onto the porch, hands perched on her hips.

  
“Not a cloud in the sky,” she said, voice sweet as rain, and peered up at the white-blue horizon with a hand shielding her eyes.  Then she turned on her heels to walk whisper-quiet on leather shoes back into the bar. 

  
Levi removed the horses reins and pulled the leather through his belt loops. He gave their rumps a sharp pat.  “Don’t go far,” Levi muttered, but he didn’t pause to see the horses trot off down the street; his hands were already shoving the saloon door open.

  
Through the sun-slashed gloom he picked out Petra making her way back to the bar, delicately ignoring hopeful stares to lock eyes with the daughter of the man meeting with Erwin upstairs.  The young woman was dusty and tired where she leaned heavy behind the bar, but her hair tumbled in thick blond waves that suggested she knew exactly how to take care of her own.  Levi nearly smiled, probably would have if his nerves weren’t strung tight enough to snap at the slightest hint of something going wrong—a thump on the ceiling over their heads, Petra’s eyes going sharp, his own intuition telling him to run and find the spots to bruise and cut.  He settled himself in a dark corner and left the redhead to her own devices.

  
Petra loved the raids almost as much as Erwin did. 

 

* * *

  
  
Levi was minutes away from getting to his feet and taking the stairs two-by-two when a familiar tattoo of footsteps clattered down the stairs on unfamiliar soles.  Levi let his gaze linger on Erwin’s thighs for a moment as he descended the stairs.  They were whole and Erwin was alone.

  
Petra leaned forward at the bar in the same instant Levi stood, and she brushed her lips to the flushed ears of the young woman.  In the next breath, just the span of a lilting giggle and a few floating steps, she was out the door. The blond stared after her, stricken, like Petra was a butterfly that had lighted on her nose for a brief moment and would never return.  Levi glanced at Erwin and sympathized.

  
Erwin paused at the bottom of the stairs.  “Looks like it might rain,” he said to no one in particular, and made his way across the room towards the door.  Levi thought they were all idiots if they didn’t notice Erwin’s steps turning into a satisfied prowl.

  
“Fuck you talking ’bout?” the bartender said.

  
No one answered.

  
Death pushed its way through the door in the form of an emaciated old man.

  
_You fucking bastard_ , Levi thought, _you don’t even look like him_.  Erwin didn’t falter, refusing to move aside for the newcomer and forcing the man to step around him, which he did with an expression that left Levi certain he would have spat on Erwin’s new fucking duds if he wasn’t pretending to be more noble than he was.

  
Levi’s ears caught a sharp whistle outside just as he fell into step behind Erwin. _Walk faster_ , he thought.

  
“Can I help you?” Levi heard the bartender say.

  
“Yes.  You can.”  The thin man had a tone that made Levi’s skin crawl.  It was thick as oil, not at all reedy like Levi had expected.  “I’m here to meet with your boss.”

  
Levi gritted his teeth.

  
“Sure.  Sure whatever.  Name?”

  
“Nicholas Lobov.  He’s expecting me.”  Levi could picture the self-satisfied look in Lobov’s dulled eyes.  He had a moment of pleasure imagining what the bastard would look like when he realized Erwin had the papers stating in excruciating detail how Lobov had fucked over the oil company and wormed thugs into the soft government like parasites to eat away at the townspeople’s money, when Lobov understood that the long list of men who’s deaths he’d ordered lay against Erwin’s heart, tucked into the pocket Levi had sewn.  As Erwin had thought, Lobov hadn’t expected anyone to figure out the barely-known saloon owner would hold his plans.

  
The bartender snorted and Levi’s rush of triumph imploded.  “Dunno what you’re playing, but that man right there is Nicholas Lobov.”  

  
_Run_ , Levi willed at the back of Erwin’s neck.  In two steps he’d be out the door. 

   
“That handsome one,” the bartender drawled on.  “The tall blond.”  

  
_Shut up, shut up_.  Levi prayed Erwin didn’t turn to toss Lobov a shit-eating grin.

  
“What,” Lobov said.

  
It was absolutely silent for a moment.  Levi watched Erwin’s stride slow at the same time his own left hand went for a chair and his right curled around gun at his hip.

  
Erwin’s head turned and Levi didn’t wait to see the brilliant smile that was surely pulling his mouth wide; he turned as Erwin did, using his momentum to fling the chair as he aimed his gun.

  
“What the _fuck_ ,” the bartender shouted.

  
Lobov’s gunshot went wide, missing Erwin’s grin by the span of a head Erwin would tell Levi later, but all Levi could focus on was keeping himself between Erwin and Lobov’s raised gun because his hands would shake if he stopped to check.  He hadn’t heard Erwin’s body fall to the ground, so he bared his teeth and looked at the woman Petra had flirted shamelessly with for the last hour.  Her eyes were wide like she’d seen this before and she nodded, shaky and discreet; Petra always knew somehow.

  
“Pardon, sir.”  Erwin’s voice danced around his polite words with mocking pleasure.  “But I don’t appreciate being impersonated.”  His voice was too close behind Levi, like he was getting ready to push Levi out of the way of a bullet.

  
Levi widened his eyes and there was a flash of silver a moment before Lobov could fire his gun again, and half a moment before Levi fired his because _fuck_ if he was dying here and if Erwin died he might as well go too. 

  
“Fuck,” the bartender whispered when Lobov’s body hit the ground, head bleeding from a wound the woman had given him with a silver serving platter.  

  
Levi pushed backwards, colliding with Erwin’s chest exactly where he’d thought Erwin loomed.  Erwin’s hands caught his hips.  

 

“ _Move_ ,” Levi hissed.  “Move, you gigantic fuck.”  He pressed into Erwin, shoving him back a step at a time, gun still trained on Lobov’s limp body.  But Lobov wasn’t moving, and no one in the bar dared to breathe.  Erwin didn’t take his hands from Levi’s hips as they walked backwards; hoofbeats outside the door gave their jerky dance a rhythm.

   
“Stop fuckin’ around you absolute pain in the ass,” Petra sang from the porch.    
Levi elbowed Erwin and felt a ripple of relief when the Erwin finally let go and ducked out the door.  

  
“By the way, love,” Petra continued, “this is your chance.”  Not a soul in the bar knew who she was talking to and that was the woman’s saving grace.  She leapt the bar and flew past Levi who caught a huff and a giggle from Petra when, he assumed, the woman vaulted up onto the horse behind her with the same feline fluidity she used to sail over the bar.

  
Levi still stared at Lobov.  His arm didn’t shake.  His finger flexed on the trigger.

  
“Levi.”  

  
His body leaned back into that voice.

  
“ _Levi_.”

  
Levi lowered the gun.

  
“What the fuck,” the bartender whimpered.  “Is he fucking dead?”

  
“Hope so,” Levi said, and walked backwards out of the saloon.

 

* * *

 

“I’m going to kill you,” Levi growled.  He nudged Erwin’s horse forward, taking off after Petra and the young woman at a clip he half-hoped would dislodge Erwin.

  
Erwin just buried his face in Levi’s neck and laughed.  Heavy arms slipped around Levi’s waist.

  
“Idiot,” Levi muttered and pressed back into Erwin’s chest.  Erwin immediately stopped laughing in favor of nuzzling Levi’s neck and mouthing at the skin behind his ear.  

  
“Fucking idiot.” Levi shivered at the scrape of teeth, sharp against his thin skin.  He could feel Erwin hardening against his back in steady throbs that matched the rolling lope of the horse.

  
“Yeah,” Erwin purred, “without a doubt.  Turns out Lobov _would_ carry a gun.”

  
“I’m going to kill you,” Levi said again, shoving his voice around the moan gathering at the base of his throat.

  
“I know.”  Erwin kissed his pulse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually *have* written more to this. 
> 
> I...need to stop with the verses.
> 
> 100 billion hugs to everyone who's sent me prompts. I love you, I love you.


	7. Modern AU: Teacher/Janitor Romancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To [erwinsalive's delightful headcanon](https://erwinsalive.tumblr.com/post/162508327032/eruri-au-where-erwin-dances-so-badly-at-a-club) that Erwin is a terrible dancer. Modern AU, janitor/teacher dorky romancing.

 

 

“You’ll see.”  Hanji leaned against the wall next to Levi.  The suit was too tight across Levi’s shoulders and his slacks were too long.  The hems were getting dirty.  

  
Levi glanced sideways at them and then back down at the drink in his hand.

  
“You’re blushing,” Hanji said.

  
“I’m sweating,” Levi muttered.  Someone had cranked the heat in the room.  Maybe the hotel staff hoped to drive them out faster by sweating them to death.

  
Hanji nudged his shoulder.  “He sure looks good in a suit, doesn’t he.”

  
Levi didn’t look up.  Erwin always looked good, he didn’t have to check to know the man’s suit didn’t fit as horribly as his own did.  Seeing Erwin in a jacket and tie would just make Levi sweat more.  Why was it so goddamn hot?

  
“Though, maybe there is such a thing as too much blue on that man.  Yeah, it brings out his eyes but…”

  
Levi glanced up despite himself and gawked.  He’d managed to avoided looking at Erwin since he arrived ten minutes ago, and now his brain physically felt the history teacher’s vivid blue suit like a punch.  Levi blinked, unsure where to look.  Erwin looked— Levi didn’t know how he looked.  Ridiculous, for sure.  But the pants fit him too well to ignore.  And the jacket was just tight enough.  Levi sighed.

  
“…if he just lost the jacket…” As Hanji mused, the massive P.E. teacher who only ever gave Levi awkward nods of solidarity slapped Erwin on the back and offered to take his jacket.  “Told you,” Hanji said.  “You’ll see.  It’s a group effort.”

  
Erwin looked so good in his fitted white dress shirt, Levi felt his face heat and he ducked his head to stare again at his untouched drink.

  
“You’ll want to chug that,” Hanji said.  They tapped the rim of Levi’s cup and leaned lightly against his shoulder.  “Trust me.”

 

  
“Why are you doing this,” Levi mumbled.  He hadn’t wanted to come to the staff party; he wasn’t even a teacher.  He doubted anyone besides Hanji even knew his name, but Hanji hounded him until he agreed.  It was hot and loud and the music was so cheesy his insides rolled.  He’d rather be drinking a beer on his back porch wondering how good Erwin looked in a suit.  The actual knowledge was too much.  Sensory overload Hanji had told him once.

  
Hanji leaned a little harder against Levi.  “He’s only human, Levi,” they said softly.  “I’m gonna get a drink.  You staying here?”

  
Levi nodded and pressed himself harder into the wall.  The outskirts suited him just fine until he could make his escape.

  
“Alright,” Hanji said.  “Brace yourself.”  They winked and left Levi in his sticky, overheated misery.

  
Levi gulped down his drink, some cranberry bullshit that wasn’t nearly strong enough, and risked a glance around the room.  Smith’s face was flushed red and his hair stuck up a bit as he waved his drink and tried to get one of the teachers onto the dance floor with him.  Levi’s stomach lurched.  She was so pretty.  Levi had to leave.

 

He made his way over to the bar and turned his back to the room so he didn’t have to see Erwin dance with the pretty teacher.  Hanji stopped talking to the bartender to offer Levi a smile.  “Couldn’t watch?” they asked.

  
Levi swallowed and shook his head.  He wanted to go home.

  
“Oh my god,” Hanji groaned as he was about to open his mouth to tell them he was catching a cab.  They were staring at the dance floor with abject fascination.  “He thinks he’s smooth, that’s the worst part.  I want to die.”  They grabbed Levi’s arm.  “Levi, you have to do something.”

  
Levi squawked.  “Why me?”  His mind was kicking into overdrive and he was sweating enough that it trickled down his spine. 

  
“Do something, or kill me.”  Hanji took off their glasses so they couldn’t see the dance floor.  They squinted at Levi, eyes seeming small without the thick lenses.  “Those are the options.”

  
“Christ, Hanji.  What—”  Levi glanced at the dance floor and mentally jerked to a complete standstill.  It was impossible for someone with as much charisma, as much raw animal magnetism as Erwin to look so awkward.  Levi glanced away quickly.  “Oh god,” he said.

  
“I _told_ you!” Hanji said.  “Levi, save him.”

  
“Oh fuck, no,” Levi said.  Erwin wasn’t dancing with anyone, though, not for lack of trying.  He appeared to be making his away around the entire room, singing into his empty cup and attempting something of that bump-and-grind Levi had seen at one too many high school dances.  Except, since no one was bumping-and-grinding with him, he just wiggled alone in space, entirely too large, taking off balanced steps here and there.  But goddamn did he look happy.

  
“Levi, I am begging.  He’s coming over here.”

  
Erwin tossed his head and sang loud enough for Levi to hear him over the speakers.  And then he made eye contact with Levi, zeroed in on him like he’d been looking for Levi the whole time.  Levi flushed so fast another wave of sweat dripped down his back, and he panicked, turned around in such a rush he caught his stomach against the bar and wheezed.  Levi had never made eye-contact with Erwin before.  He thought he might be sick.

  
“Don’t freak out,” Hanji said.

  
“Please, shut up,” Levi hissed.

  
Erwin leaned on the bar next to Levi a moment later, placing his cup gently next to Levi’s.  Levi could feel his body heat from a foot away.  He looked at his empty glass.  He definitely should’ve ordered another drink.  Maybe five.  He hoped his porch would miss him when he didn’t return because he’d died of a fucking heart attack at an end-of-year staff party while Bonnie Tyler wailed on forever in the background.  Apparently, he would die knowing Erwin knew all the words to _Total Eclipse of the Heart_.  He really could have done without that.

  
“Levi,” Erwin said.  Levi had listened to Erwin lecture, but hearing that voice directed at himself was something else entirely.  Somehow, Levi always forgot how just deeply Erwin’s voice resonated in his chest; Levi could feel it second-hand.  His own rib cage was sympathetic to the one trying to house Erwin’s rumbling tone.

  
Levi opened and closed his mouth a few times, gaping down at his cup.  He hadn’t regained his breath from catching his stomach on the bar, and Erwin’s voice had knocked it right back out of him.  Why the fuck did Erwin know his name?  He was a _janitor_.  No one talked to him.  
  


Out of the corner of his eye, Levi saw Erwin angle his body to face him and he slumped to lean against the counter.  “I’m so glad you came,” he continued, like Levi wasn’t completely and unsuccessfully ignoring his existence.  “Hanji said you might, but I know you don’t like these kinds of events.”

  
Levi glanced up, startled.  “What?” he blurted.

  
Erwin smiled too wide, so that his gums showed above his teeth and his nose wrinkled when Levi finally looked at him.  He held out a hand.  Levi stared at it, confused.  Erwin’s smile fell a bit.  “Sorry,” he said.  “I didn’t think we’d met properly.  I’m Erwin—”

  
“I know,” Levi said.  “I mean.”  He clenched his fists.  He couldn’t shake Erwin’s hand because his palms were so sweaty they might just slide off of each other.  “I mean, I’ve seen you.  Around.”

  
Erwin’s grin was blinding and Bonnie Tyler was shrieking on loop in Levi’s brain.  Sensory overload.  Levi cleared his throat.  He had to tell Erwin he was leaving, too, now.  A familiar guitar riff started up as he gathered his nerve and Erwin’s eyebrows shot to his hairline.  

 

“ _Levi_ ,” he breathed.  Levi’s heart skipped several beats.  “Oh, I love this one.”  Erwin beamed down at Levi with the same intensity he leveled at textbooks.  He held out his hand again.  It sure was a nice looking hand.  “Come dance?  No one else will dance with me.”  Erwin’s brows pulled together in a wounded, baffled expression and Levi shot Hanji a frantic look over his shoulder.  Hanji squinted and gave Levi a thumbs up.   _Traitor_.

  
Levi managed to look at Erwin through his lashes and tried breathe when Erwin’s hand wrapped around his own.  Erwin’s palm was somehow more sweaty than his, and Levi seemed fated to die also knowing that Erwin tried to tango to Santana.  Apparently stunning good looks didn’t translate to seductive ballroom dance moves.  Or good taste in music. 

 

Life was unfair, Levi decided when Erwin’s hand found the small of his back, tentative and shaking slightly, and he was close enough to Erwin’s chest to feel the vibrations while the man sang half-remembered lyrics.  Hanji put their glasses back on and seemed entirely too smug for Levi’s liking.


	8. Canonverse Pining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 26\. “You don’t even know what you do to me.
> 
> from that lovely list :)
> 
> [~900 words, post acwnr, pre-canon pining, softest angst]

 

 

It was a fight, of all things, that tipped the scale.  Levi didn’t know Erwin’s brows could crumple like that.

  
“Levi, you should come to the capital next week.”  Erwin didn’t look up as he said it, but as Levi watched, he continued to sort the papers on his desk a bit too carefully.

  
Levi didn’t answer.  He’d rather lick his own boots clean than play nice at a dinner party, but he wanted to know why Erwin was asking him along.  For a moment, he imagined being alone with Erwin in a carriage, at an inn after the party, and his stomach flipped.

  
Erwin glanced up at his silence.  “It would be good, you know,” he continued in his even tone, “to get your face out there.  People will be a lot more willing to fund the Corps if they’ve seen Humanity’s Strongest in person.”  He gestured a hand at Levi and shattered all of Levi’s thoughts of shadowy rooms and shared breaths in an instant.

  
Levi clenched his jaw against the flare of hurt.  He’d forgotten.  Somewhere he’d lost his mind, and he thought with a sick lurch that he’d find it amongst late-night talks and the warm pressure of Erwin’s hand on his shoulder when they made it home safely.  He’d forgotten he was just a piece to play with while he leaned into that hand like a pathetic stray.  

  
Levi bared his teeth, trying to choke down the hurt.  “What,” he snarled, “tired of sniffing asses, Erwin?  You want me to do that for you, too?”  There was a lump in his throat and he wanted to lean into Erwin’s palm instead of spitting like this, longed to pick his hand up off the desk and press his cold nose against it, even if it was a lie.  Erwin’s face was falling into shock.  That hurt more than his own aching chest and he pushed on, trying to trample the sensation.  “Is that my role, as ‘Humanity’s Strongest?’” he mocked.  “Kiss some ass and raise a bit of cash while a bunch of assholes jack off over their miserable lives?  Is that what I’m good for, Erwin?”  Levi had trouble getting the words out; it used to be easier to hurl words like knives.  His hands shook so he balled them into fists and forced himself to glare at Erwin. 

  
The look Erwin gave him in return, wounded and surprised, knocked open, made Levi’s stomach drop.  Then Erwin swallowed hard and blinked, and his careful expression was back in place.

  
“Of course not, Levi,” he said in a low voice.  “I didn’t mean to imply that.”  The faintest flush covered his cheekbones and he stopped shuffling his papers to fold his hands on his desk.  Levi watched the tendons strain.

  
“Fine.  I’ll go.”  

  
Surprise flickered across Erwin’s face again, his eyes going wide and his mouth pulling down at the corners.  “No, Levi.  I’ll have Mike come with me.  He’s been before.  You’ll be useful here with Hanji while I’m gone.”

  
“I said I’d go,” Levi snapped.

  
Erwin paused long enough that Levi wanted to growl to break it.  He had no idea what was going on behind Erwin’s gently composed mask.  Erwin stood before he could speak, though, and made his way around the desk.  Levi couldn’t bear the way Erwin looked when he was slightly flushed.  

  
“It would be good to have you there.”  Erwin’s voice was soft and careful, and he placed his hand on Levi shoulder.  “Thank you.”

  
Levi’s pulse fluttered and the urge to rest in the warmth nearly made him sigh, so he knocked Erwin’s hand away and turned on his heels.

  
_You don’t know what you do to me_ , Levi thought, replaying the conversation rapidly over and over in time with his frantic heartbeat.   _You don’t even know, you don’t know, you_ can’t _know_.

  
He knew he’d lost the battle when he fell asleep wondering how vulnerable Erwin would look sleeping beside him or how gently Erwin’s hand might run through his hair.  He knew what Erwin looked like when he blushed, now, and he wished he didn’t.  He wanted and wanted and wanted, burning to match Erwin’s flush.

 

* * *

 

Having Levi by his side at the party had been nothing sort of comforting.  Erwin tried to figure out a way to tell Levi so without making his eyes shutter into cool cautiousness.  He stuffed his hands into his jacket to resist curling his hand around Levi’s shoulder.  The gesture was far too familiar, but he was addicted to the way Levi’s muscles felt under his palm, and how Levi leaned into him slightly before slinking away.  He couldn’t get enough of that moment of being _allowed_.

  
“You really should have brought Mike.  He’d be better at sniffing asses than either of us.”  Levi looked over his shoulder at Erwin and snorted.  His laugh startled Erwin.  It was small and odd, defiant, like Levi.  His stomach dropped with the sudden image of Levi huffing little laughs against his lips, how he’d feel sitting in Erwin’s lap, quietly mocking their hell while Erwin stripped him of his shirt and laid desperate kisses across his warm skin.

  
“Erwin?”  Levi frowned, steps faltering  His pleased expression was falling into uncertainty.  Erwin thought a month ago he’d have misread the expression as sullen, but now he tried to arrange his mouth into a gentle smile.  Levi’s eyes relaxed again, and Erwin thought with a pang, _You don’t even know, do you?  You have no idea what you’re doing to me._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to write a mini-sequel to this... confessions... yes.


	9. Modern AU: Teacher/Janitor Romancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Same verse as the bad dancer drabble from chapter 7! God someone please help them.
> 
> 43\. “You look really sexy when you do that.”

 

Levi’s cell buzzed in his pocket.  It buzzed more than it used to, but it still startled the shit out of him every time.

  
He tried to ignore it, he did.  It was probably just Hanji.

  
Two minutes later he ducked into the supply closet on the second floor of the high school—he’d found he got very good reception in there—and leaned his mop very slowly, very gingerly against the wall.

  
_Hey_ , said the message.  It wasn’t Hanji and the name at the top of the screen made Levi’s hands shake slightly.

  
_yeah?_ Levi wrote back. 

  
Ellipses appeared;  _Erwin Smith is typing_.  Levi checked the time.  11:20am.  Erwin was  most likely in the breakroom.   _Oh. Nothing. I was just thinking of you. Thought I’d say hello in case your ears were ringing_.

  
_oh_ , Levi wrote back, choking on his heart as it tried to crawl up out of his throat. He thought the breakroom had been looking messy when he made tea that morning.

 

* * *

 

Hanji ducked in front of Levi while he paced in front of the breakroom trying to figure out how to open the goddamn door.  They ruffled his hair, finger scrubbing at his scalp.

  
“Hey!” Levi grumbled, swatting their hand away.  He tried to flatten his hair back down.  His palms were damp enough from nerves that it probably worked like water.

  
“He had a rough morning,” Hanji said without preamble.  “Jaeger and Kirschtein had a fight.  I think they’re both getting suspended.”

  
Levi tried to step around Hanji, frowning.  “So?  Those two brats are always fighting.  Would they really be shocked about getting suspended?”

  
Hanji smiled and stepped aside to let Levi pass.  “Erwin thinks he’s responsible for them.”

  
“What?”  Levi stopped and looked back at Hanji.  “That’s stupid.  It’s not Erwin’s problem if those kids have no self-control.”  

  
Hanji’s smile turned fond.  It made Levi pause.  He didn’t think he’d seen that smile leveled at anyone besides himself.  “Got a date yet?”  They asked, smile turning cheeky.  Levi tripped, stomach dropping.

  
“No.  Shut up.”  Levi sputtered.  “I don’t want a fucking date.”

  
Hanji barked a loud laugh.  “Straight to marriage, then?”

  
“Fuck _off_.”  Levi shoved his way into the breakroom, leaving Hanji cackling behind him.  Their laugh chased him into the room, cutting off abruptly when Levi slammed the door shut.  

  
He felt a flush crawling up his face and he wondered why the fuck he thought this was a good idea.  There was Erwin, sprawled on the sofa, looking up from his phone with his painfully bright eyes going wide with surprise.  His lips parted.  God, he had nice lips.  Levi looked quickly at his feet.

  
That was the thing, Levi thought bitterly.  Erwin _hadn’t_ asked him to do anything.  Not since he’d drunkenly tugged Levi onto the dance floor at that godforsaken end-of-year party last week.  School was winding and Levi was running out of time.  Maybe he wasn’t interested like Levi had thought.  It would have been far, far too good to be true anyways.

  
Levi was an idiot and he couldn’t stop thinking about Erwin’s breath ruffling his hair and his huge palms resting lightly on against back.  Erwin probably didn’t think about Levi clinging tipsily to his waist nearly as fondly.

  
Levi swallowed.  He felt ill.  At least no one else was there to witness his death.

  
“Levi,” Erwin said.  “Hello.”  His voice _felt_ warm, like Levi could feel the rich waves of sound licking at him, and way Erwin said his name rippled all the way down to his toes.

  
“Hey.”  Levi turned on his heel and walked to the sink.  Steady, with purpose.  “I’m just cleaning,” he grunted, wanting to crawl under a rock, maybe the fucking table, because there was no way Erwin wasn’t seeing his neck turning a humiliating shade of red.

  
He’d forgotten to bring any cleaning supplies so he ran the water, splashing it around the basin.  His phone buzzed.  It was probably Hanji laughing some more, but he was so desperate for a distraction, he wiped his hands on his pants and yanked out his phone.  The tap still ran.

  
_Erwin Smith._

  
Levi froze again.

  
_I’m glad you came down._

  
“Whatever,” Levi said, barely able to hear himself.  He thought he heard Erwin laughing quietly behind him when he shoved his phone back in his pocket.

  
His phone went off again while he was putting mugs away.  He hadn’t turned to look at Erwin since he’d crashed into the breakroom and Levi felt worse and worse for ignoring him every moment that stretched on.

  
It was Erwin again.  Levi was going to have a heart attack.   _I had a bad morning._ Erwin had sent. _Things I should have prevented… Anyways, seeing you makes me feel better._

 _  
_ Levi stared at his phone.  Erwin was behind him.  Right there.  Just a room full of footsteps away.  He could hear Erwin shifting on the couch.  What the fuck was he supposed to do?  He couldn’t very well turn around now.

  
_i have no idea why the fuck, but i’m glad i guess_.  He hit send and felt a rush of heat.  Was that even English?  He definitely heard Erwin laughing softly this time.  Fuck that.

  
He stretched up to put the last mug away, trying to stifle a huff of effort.  He felt a breeze cooling his lower back as his shirt came untucked and he tried not to think about the skin Erwin was probably getting an eyeful of.  There were only so many more things he could tidy before he’d have to turn around.

  
His phone buzzed.  “What the _fuck_ ,” Levi blurted.  He whirled to look at Erwin, who wore expression uncannily similar to the one little blond sported when Levi had caught making out with her girlfriend behind the athletics shed that morning.  Erwin bit his lip and blushed.

  
Levi had to look away.  He didn’t want to open the message.  He wanted to open the message.  He mostly wanted to lay down and curl up.  It had been so much easier when they were drunk.

  
He opened the message.

  
_You look really sexy when you do that_.

  
Levi swallowed convulsively and looked up before he could stop himself.

  
“I—I’m sorry.”  Erwin shoved a hand up through his hair, tugging until it stood on end.  “I shouldn’t have—”

  
“Will you just ask me on a fucking date?” Levi breathed, shaky.

  
Erwin’s jaw dropped.

  
Levi closed his eyes.  “Oh god, never mind.”  His phone buzzed.  He tried not to pant with anxiety when he peaked with one eye.

 

_What are you doing tonight?_

  
Both of Levi’s eyes flew open.  Erwin’s hair stood on end, and his watermelon green-and-pink tie matched his hot pink socks and  the spots of color on his cheeks.

  
“I’m free,” Levi whispered.

  
Erwin’s jaw worked for a few moments.  “Go out with me tonight?  Dinner, coffee, a movie, I don’t care.”  The smile he offered was breakable.  

  
“Okay.  Yeah.”  Levi balled his hands and shoved them behind his back so Erwin couldn’t see them shaking.

  
“Which one?”

  
“What?”

  
Erwin’s eyes were flickering bright again with amusement.  “All three?”

  
Levi needed to sit down.  “You’re an ass,” he muttered.

  
Erwin laughed, too loud and shivering a little under those rich notes.  “I am, definitely.” And this time Levi could feel the way Erwin’s voice sounded like the echo of his warm hand against the small of Levi’s back when they’d danced, clumsy and tentative.

 

Levi dimly registered the warning bell for next period chiming, but he couldn’t look away from how Erwin hid a pleased grin behind his broad hand.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why are they like this? I love them.


	10. Modern AU: College Study Buddies [Kiss Meme]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technically this was a kiss meme fill, which I was going to put all in one chapter, but this one got... rather long.
> 
> This had been a fill for [acrknowyou](https://acrknowyou.tumblr.com) and Dust is the actual sweetest and drew art for it and I am fucking sobbing. [Please come cry with me](https://acrknowyou.tumblr.com/post/164462998941/i-really-wanted-to-draw-something-for-this)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big Mood: Ingrid Michaelson's [Breakable](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHW_cH39YIY)
> 
> “I’ve missed you” kiss & surprised kiss [sort of combined in a mess]

 

Levi absolutely did not think about Erwin over winter break.  

  
Not while he picked up hours bussing tables trying not to squirm and gag at the half-eaten food mashed into slop.  Not while he told his mother about classes when their schedules overlapped in the rare moments she wasn’t working herself ragged.  Not when Kenny came over already tipsy on New Years—gruff voice just loud enough to give Levi a headache.  And Levi _certainly_ didn’t wonder if Erwin was kissing someone when he watched the celebration on television alone and on mute because his mother had gone to bed early and his uncle had passed out on the couch hours ago.

  
His phone lit up at 12:01 with a message from Erwin wishing him a happy new year and Levi was annoyed to have to think of him when he responded.  If Erwin was kissing someone, he was surely a terrible kisser to be finished already, Levi thought bitterly.  Then he shoved the thought away as he stuffed his phone in his pocket and went to bed, leaving a glass of water by Kenny’s miserable head.

  
Levi’s insomnia came back with a vengeance over break without homework to wear him out.  His room was freezing and he shivered for hours trying to fall asleep wearing leggings and sweats and several shirts under his hoodie.  Hanji had told him that too many layers could make him colder and he needed to create a little bubble of warm air or some fucking shit, but Levi wasn’t about to risk it.  

  
One night, he slipped his hands under the waistbands, down between his legs, bored and desperate to warm up, hoping to pass out if he got himself off hard enough.  His mind wandered too far along the chain he kept on it and he bit his lip against bright eyes and a low voice telling him to “ _come Levi, relax for me sweetheart_.”  Levi allowed himself, for one poorly thought out moment, to tug at his own hair and wish it was blond and thick and stiff with clean-smelling product.

  
Levi was especially careful not to think of Erwin again after that.

 

* * *

 

The week before Levi was to return to college, his mother made him tea.  

  
“Levi,” she said, sitting down heavily across from him and stirring a lot of sugar into her tea.  Levi watched as some of it splashed onto their kitchen table.  “I got the day off,” she was saying.  Her voice was crackly thin like paper.  Or a wavering birdsong.  Levi wondered if she still sang while she worked.  He didn’t wonder if Erwin would approve of the sugar his mother added to her tea, like the syrupy shit Erwin pretended was coffee.

  
Sometimes when they studied together, Erwin brought drinks.  He had a Starbucks Card.  Levi had sneered until Erwin handed over a piping hot black tea, double cupped and so big it seemed the size of Levi’s entire upper body.

  
“You like tea, right?” Erwin said, looking worried like Levi had wanted whatever sickly sweet shit Erwin was rotting his teeth with today.  In actuality, Levi hadn’t expected a damn thing.

  
“Yeah,” he had grunted, but he was already prying off the lid to shove his cold nose into the steam.  “Fuck, that’s good,” he sighed.

  
When he looked up through the curling steam, Erwin was giving him a funny look.  Levi hadn’t seen it on anyone before and he didn’t know what to make of it so he scowled and muttered, “Thanks.”

  
Erwin had hid a grin in a mountain of whipped cream.  He got some on his nose and Levi swallowed hard—

  
“Levi?”  His mother watched him with a slight frown.

  
“Thanks for the tea, Mom,” Levi said, blinking back to his kitchen.

  
“Course, baby.  You okay?”  The tea made his mother’s delicately soft cheeks flush pink and Levi was struck by how pretty she was.

  
He nodded.  The tea was pretty good.  The mug was small, though.  At some point he’d gotten used to those extra-fuckin’ large paper cups.  His face felt warm, and realizing he was blushing made it go hotter.

  
“Excited to go back?” His mother paused to sip some of her hot sugar water.  “Sorry I’ve been so busy, baby.  We can go shopping today if you need anything.”

  
Levi would rather claw his own eyes out than have her spend any money on him, so he shook his head.  “Nah, I’m good.”

  
Kuchel’s face crumpled a little and Levi cursed himself.  “You aren’t excited?” she asked.  Her eyes were huge and dark and not at all like Levi’s.

  
“Oh. Uh no, Mom, I am.”  He rubbed at the skin between his thumb and forefinger, pinching it.  “School’s good.  ’s fine.”

  
“Have you met anyone nice?”  Her round eyes looked hopeful and Levi’s stomach dropped thinking about blue ones.

  
“Yeah, I got friends, Mom. Hanji came to the same school, remember?”

  
Kuchel nodded.  “Course I remember.  Should’ve had ’em over.”

  
Levi smiled faintly.  “Nah, a break from Hanji does us both some good.”

  
Kuchel grinned.  Her face crinkled when she did.  “But have you _met_ anyone, Levi?  You knew Hanji before you left.”

  
“Sure.” Levi shrugged and hid his face in his mug.  “I’ve met loads of people,” he muttered over the rim.

  
For some reason that made his mother laugh a big old rollicking laugh that made Levi glad Kenny had gone back to wherever the fuck he came from; he’d have come snooping for sure.  “You turnin’ into a social butterfly on me, baby?”

  
Levi scowled into his tea, ears heating up more.  “Yeah,” he muttered.  “Definitely.”

  
Kuchel giggled harder.  “I’m teasing you.”  She nudged Levi gently under the table.  “Just worried.  I know you got a single and all, missing out on the roommate experience.”

  
“I know that.”  Levi was getting tired from talking so much.  It was like Erwin was just inside his mouth, shouting to get out.  He had to keep closing his lips really tight to keep blue eyes and a low, smart as fuck voice from introducing itself to his mother.

  
“Anyone cute?”

  
“ _Mom_ ,” Levi sputtered and looked up.  Kuchel’s eyes were bright, but her mouth was soft.  All of her was soft: her cheeks, her body, her tired voice.  Levi thought it had been years since he’d curled up against her, but the scent of baking bread and baby powder still made him think of her, all warm and squishy, no matter where he smelled it.  Levi felt his own mouth turn down and he was speaking before he could stop himself.

  
“Well, they aren’t ugly,” he grumbled.

  
“Oh _my_ ,” Kuchel said, voice shivering on a giggle again.  “They must be a stunner for you to speak so highly.  What do they look like?”

  
“Whatever.”  Levi put his face in his hands and pictured his ears steaming.  “Uh, taller than me.  Not like that’s hard.”  Kuchel snorted at that.  “Blond, fuckin’ rich.  I don’t have a chance in hell.”

  
And just like that, he’d admitted to his mother he had a sweaty-hand, stomach-jittery, can’t-sleep kinda crush on Erwin Smith.

  
Kuchel’s hand was gentle on his hair.  “Baby, they’d be a goddamn idiot not to fall for you, and I’ll personally come for their ass.”

  
“Mom,” Levi groaned.

  
“Just bein’ honest.  C’mon, I got paid and I want something sweet.”

  
“Your tea wasn’t enough for you?”  Levi looked up and offered his mother a real try at a smile.

  
Kuchel snorted.  “Not even close.  I want…hmm,” she paused.  “Pastries or hot chocolate, what’d you think, Levi?”

  
Erwin would want both, Levi thought.  “You get one, I’ll get the other,” he said.  Kuchel was so soft when she hugged him, Levi thought she might break.

 

* * *

  
  
Levi took the train back to school a few days later wondering how his mother saw him.  Mothers were blessedly blind, he thought, and it made him sad.

  
Erwin was smart as hell, scary smart.  Levi bitterly figured he’d be good with Hanji.  He was still surprised Erwin had looked so damn… _okay_ with it when the professor paired them up, like he’d wanted it from the get go.  And he was even more shocked Erwin _kept_ studying with him even after they’d finished their presentation.  Levi had stuttered through the entire thing, sweaty and red-faced, ready to vomit.  Erwin didn’t seem to mind.  He bought Levi a tea after and put a warm hand on his shoulder, saying “Good job, Levi.”  Levi’s stomach had flipped so violently at that, it made the presentation feel like cake.

  
The upcoming semester seemed so dim without library sessions with Erwin to look forward to.  Levi sighed and curled up in his seat, chin tucked into several shirts, a sweatshirt, and his beat-to-shit jacket.  Erwin had a peacoat that made Levi’s teeth ache.

  
He got to campus late and stale and irritated.  Someone was already throwing a party.  Next year he’d apply for the quiet dorm, or maybe rent something if he saved enough over the summer.

  
His phone lit up while he was trying to figure out how many layers to wear to bed.  A sweatshirt was too much, and his fleecy leggings were overkill.  Shorts might do… He checked the message.

  
Levi’s heart stopped and restarted.  

  
_I’m back on campus. Do you want to get tea tomorrow? If you’re around, that is._

  
_Fine_ , he replied.  He slept in one shirt because his heart beat so hard he couldn’t cool down.  

 

* * *

 

  
Erwin knocked on his door just as he was getting ready to leave for the cafe, startling the living shit out of him.

  
“ _Erwin_ ,” Levi huffed when he’d scrambled to open the door.  His leg was shaking uncontrollably, and he slammed the door too hard behind Erwin, who seemed to take up a whole lot of space in his room.

  
Erwin’s eyes were wide and apologetic, bluer than Levi remembered.  “I’m sorry, Levi.  I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  
“You didn’t.”  Levi’s voice was so breathy he wanted to die.  He pinched the skin between his thumb and forefinger behind his back.

  
Erwin laughed.  His laugh was bigger than he was, if it was possible.  “Of course,” he said.  “I just wanted to give you this before you froze coming to meet me.”

  
Levi blinked at the thing Erwin held; he hadn’t even noticed it when he opened the door.

  
Erwin reached and gently coaxed Levi’s hands from behind his back, placing the thick fabric between his palms.  “It doesn’t bite,” he said gently.

  
“What the fuck?” Levi said.  He couldn’t seem to move.  He looked at the silvery grey lump of expensive fabric, and then up at Erwin.

  
Erwin’s eyes softened at the corners.  “God, I missed you,” he sighed, inexplicably, and carefully took the fabric back from Levi.  He unfolded it and wrapped it around Levi’s neck, tucking it up over his mouth.  “It’s a scarf.”  There was enough fabric for Levi to use as a blanket.

  
“I knew that,” Levi mumbled into the fabric.  A scarf, a scarf, a _gift_.  Erwin had given him a gift.  His brain was glitching over the _God, I missed you_ and he couldn’t figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do next.  Then, mercifully, his face was mashed into that beautiful black peacoat and Erwin was tucking him into a hug, cupping his head so gently Levi didn’t even know if Kuchel held him like that.

  
“I missed you,” Erwin said again into his hair and Levi felt a light pressure and realized with another glitching jolt that Erwin had pressed his lips to his hair.  His thumb stroked Levi’s neck, sliding from his nape down into the warmth created by the beautiful scarf and Levi was on fire.

  
He closed his eyes and sucked a shuddery breath.  He was supposed to say something, he knew that.  Hanji and his mother and everyone else that tried to help him was wailing in his head.   _Tell him, Levi_ , they said. _Say thank you.  Smile, speak, be good, why are you so quiet?_ But Levi’s tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and gifts made his throat ache.  So he pulled back, kept his eyes squeezed shut, and managed to say, “Please,” instead of thank you.

  
He curled his fingers into fists and braced himself in case he read Erwin wrong; he couldn’t possibly have read him right.

  
“Oh,” Erwin breathed, “Levi.”  He sounded heartbroken and Levi didn’t know why, but his breath was minty and his thumb was rich-boy soft when it stroked along Levi’s jaw to push down the scarf enough that he could press his lips to Levi’s.

  
Levi realized maybe Erwin had just pre-empted Levi’s shattering heart with his sad little sigh because no one could be kissed as delicately as Erwin was kissing _him_ without their heart breaking.  Levi clung to his woolen jacket, curling his fists there instead while Erwin slid his fingers up along the back of Levi’s skull.

  
Levi whimpered, a tiny broken-winged cry.

  
Erwin fingers shook.

  
“I missed you,” he said again, mumbling at the corner of Levi’s mouth and then against his hair when he held Levi to his chest to let Levi shiver out his surprise.

  
“Yeah,” Levi muttered against scarf and wool.  Levi should have brought him those pastries his mother liked so much, so that he could kiss the sugar off of Erwin’s lips and see if he liked the sweetness better that way.  For now, he wound a hand up into Erwin’s hair and pulled back to glare as intently as he could manage.  “I want another,” he demanded, frowning to stop his lips from trembling.  

  
“Another scarf?” Erwin asked.  His eyes were tight like that time he told Levi he brought him a white chocolate mocha instead of a tea because Starbucks ran out.  His fingers were still shaking, though, where they stroked Levi’s head in a gentle rhythm.

  
Levi shook his head and pressed up to put his lips to Erwin’s as gently as he could, because that was how Erwin had kissed him.

  
This time, Erwin sounded wounded, shivering a low noise into Levi’s mouth, slow and hot like blood.


	11. Modern AU: College Roommates [Kiss Meme]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awkward Kiss!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a bit longer as well, so I'll post it separately. I am surprised by how much I secretly love this au...

  

“Nana asked Mike out,” Erwin said absently, plunking down next to Levi on his bed.  He shuffled back until he slumped against the wall, and wiggled his sock-covered toes.  “Finally, eh?”

  
“Whatever.”  Levi felt himself blush.  He could feel Erwin’s body heat radiating and the bed dipped under Erwin’s weight, pitching Levi across the mattress towards him.  “Sit on your own bed,” he grumbled, picking at his fingers.  His skin was dry and his knuckles burned where they’d started to split from over-washing.  Erwin lolled his head to grin down at Levi but his gaze caught on Levi’s hands and his smile faltered.

  
“Hey,” he said softly.  “Can I?”  He held out a big, soft palm.  Erwin lotioned his hands.  Levi watched him do it out of the corner of his eye before bed at night.  He liked the steady, soothing motion of the ritual.

  
“Levi?”  Erwin started to retract his hand.

  
“What?  You wanna hold hands, Erwin Smith?”  Levi tried to spit it out, but he put a faintly shaking hand in Erwin’s warm grasp nonetheless.  He couldn’t help himself.

  
Erwin made a soft sound and ran his fingers across Levi’s knuckles.  “Levi, that looks painful.”

  
Levi shrugged, trying not to shiver and shut his eyes at the gentle attention.

  
“You should put something on them.”  He turned Levi’s hand over and stroked across his fatelines.  Mike and Nana were probably kissing somewhere like normal people with crushes and here Levi was, bleeding his nasty hands all over his gorgeous roommate.

  
Levi couldn’t think straight, and he blurted something he’d been wondering since September, since the first time Erwin smiled at him and held out a hand to introduce himself.  “Erwin, you ever kissed anyone?”  His fingers twitched and he tried not to yank his hand back and flee.

  
“I have,” Erwin said carefully.  He glanced up at Levi, brows pulling together.  “Have you?”

  
Levi sighed.  “Yeah, loads,” he drawled.

  
Erwin’s frown deepened at his tone and Levi sighed again. 

   
“No,” he muttered.  “I haven’t, okay?”  

  
Erwin turned his hand back over and brushed his thumb across Levi’s knuckles.  Levi thought his heartbeat would be visible through his shirt if Erwin looked.  

 

“That’s fine, Levi,” he soothed.  It made Levi furious.  All of it.  Erwin kissing other people, stroking his hand, murmuring soft placations so close Levi could smell his expensive cologne.

 

 “Wanna?” Levi said blithely, to get a reaction, desperately hopeful.

   
Erwin’s eyes grew satisfyingly wide.  Levi braced himself, ready to throw a sneer at Erwin’s rejection and bear months of awkward glances when Erwin decided he was disgusting.  He should’ve kept his mouth shut but Erwin’s fingers were so gentle on his skin and his lips were so close, inches from his face, and all Levi could focus on was that he’d never kissed anyone before and he didn’t give a fuck if he ever kissed anyone other than Erwin fuckboy Smith.

  
“Are you sure?” Erwin breathed.

  
This time Levi’s eyes were the ones that rounded helplessly.  “What?”

  
“Are you sure you want your first kiss to be me, Levi?”

  
“Christ, don’t say it out loud like that.”  Levi ducked his head away.  Erwin hand was sweaty now and his were freezing, cracked and oozing.  “Fine,” Levi croaked.  “If you insist.”

  
Erwin’s eyes crinkled.  “You’re a prickly little shit, you know.”

  
Levi shrugged.  “You’re ugly,” he lied.

  
Erwin smiled a bit wider.  “I won’t make you kiss me, then.”

  
Levi tried to stifle a hiss of protest.  “I’ll survive.”

  
“ _I_ might not.”

  
“Smooth, Smith.”

  
Erwin laughed, snorting slightly, and Levi hoped he was nervous, too.  “Okay,” Erwin said.  “Ready?”

  
“Yeah, I’m fucking ready.  It’s just a kiss, jesus.”  Another lie.

  
“Okay,” Erwin said again.  “Alright.”

  
“Alright,” Levi echoed.  He was shaking slightly, like he was cold, teeth chattering.

  
Erwin leaned towards him, closing his eyes, and Levi didn’t know what to do so he followed suit, squeezing his eyes shut and steeling himself.  His nose cracked against Erwin’s and he jerked back with a hiss of pain at the same time Erwin reared back with a gasp.  

  
“Fuck.”  Levi clapped a hand to his nose, mortified.  “Are you okay?  This was a stupid idea.”

  
“No,” Erwin said, rubbing his nose.  “It’s not stupid.  It’s like this.”  He took Levi’s jaw in his hands and held him still, placing a dry kiss to Levi’s forehead, then his nose.

  
“You missed again,” Levi said.  He wanted to cry for some reason.

  
“My bad,” Erwin murmured.  He pressed his lips to the corner of Levi’s.  

  
Levi’s eyes slipped shut.  “Come _on_ ,” he grumbled.

  
“Prickly little shit,” Erwin said and slid his thumbs across Levi’s cheekbones before brushing his lips again Levi’s, warm and plush.  He pulled back, looking pleased with himself.

  
“The fuck was that shit,” Levi said, voice cracking embarrassingly.  “Fuckin’ _kiss_ me.”  He launched himself across the bed and tackled Erwin onto his back, shoving his lips indelicately against Erwin’s soft “ _oof_.”

 

 


	12. Modern AU: Tiny Vengeful Boyfriend Levi & Businessman Erwin [Kiss Meme]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Giggly Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, I guess all the kiss mems are getting posted individually.
> 
> For this fill, Zackley was supposed to be the boss and Nile is actually their smarmy lawyer friend. Nile calls Levi "gremlin" and Levi calls Nile "rat" and both of them are a bit more affectionate than they originally intended. But it was outrageously unclear so if you hate Nile and want to imagine him as the boss Levi just annihilated, that's fine too (but I personally hate Zackley and actually am rather fond of Nile, if you must know)

 

****“ _Levi_ ,” Erwin gasped.  He pushed Levi against the wall and buried his face in Levi’s hair.  The luncheon continued down the hall, muted and miles away.  Erwin wondered if chaos had erupted yet.  His tie was so tight he was getting claustrophobic.

  
“Don’t even say ‘I can’t believe you,’ because you really shouldn’t be surprised.”  Levi still shook with anger, hands balled into white-knuckled fists.  “He fucking deserved worse.”

  
Erwin snorted and knocked his head slightly against the wall behind Levi.  “Maybe,” he hedged.

  
Levi pressed a palm into Erwin’s chest, shoving him back enough to glare up.  His gaze crackled.  “No.  Not fucking _maybe_.  I took the goddamn day off to do this.”  His nostrils were flared and he bared his teeth.

  
Erwin stifled another snort and pressed his lips to Levi’s temple.  “You didn’t.”

  
“I did.  Why the fuck did you think I was free?  I took a sick day.  To tell your boss everything you’re too good to tell him.”

  
“You called him a pig.”

  
“Yeah, did you see his face?” Levi grinned up at Erwin.  Then his own face turned savage, angry shivers starting up again.  “He’s worse than a pig.   _God_ , Erwin.”  He snapped his teeth.

  
He looked so proud of himself and so fiercely angry on Erwin’s behalf that Erwin couldn’t help but press a line of kisses from his temple to his jaw.  “But why—” he stopped to wrestled a shaky laugh back into his chest.  “Levi, why did you stare him in the eye and dump his coffee on the floor, though?”  

  
“Oh.  I didn’t want to get you in trouble by causing him bodily harm and that was the next best thing.”  Levi leaned into his kisses and Erwin could feel the curve of his smile.  “I panicked.”

  
“Levi!”  He nuzzled Levi’s nose with his own and huffed against his lips.  “I love you.  I love you so much.  You looked—”

  
“Sexy.”

  
“I was leaning more towards ridiculous, but that too.”

  
“Not as ridiculous as that jackass with his eyes bugging out while a five-foot-nothing gremlin ripped him a new one.”  Levi’s voice wavered with amusement and he knocked their foreheads together gently.

  
“You’re not a gremlin.  Don’t let Nile call you that.”

  
Levi barked a true laugh, breath fanning across Erwin’s face.  “Nah, that’s the only good thing Rat’s ever said.”

  
Erwin sighed and pulled back to crook a tired smile at Levi.  “I might get in some serious shit for this.”  He didn’t regret it, but Levi ought to know.

  
“You won’t, I talked to that scummy lawyer last night.  Zackley’s getting sacked.  I think you should go for his job.”

  
“Levi,” Erwin breathed, reverent.  “You’re ruthless.  Holy fucking shit.”

  
Levi nodded, angry shudders having turned into smug vibrations.  “I’m a monster.”

  
Erwin shook his head, dragging kisses down his neck.  “You’re a gremlin.”

  
“Fuck off!” Levi huffed, chest shivering with barely controlled laughter as he tilted his head back for Erwin to nip at his throat.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck Zackley, amen. 
> 
> Oh, Levi. Same little babe, same.


	13. Canon Divergence: Titanwin [Kiss Meme]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kiss on the neck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *soft weeping* Sort of NSFW

 

 

“Erwin!” Levi screamed.

 

_—“Erwin,” he’d cried last night into Erwin’s palm, biting down, letting Erwin fuck him hard enough that he’d still feel him for days after if Erwin died. Anything to hang onto—_

__  
  
The town was burning down around Levi.  People were wailing behind him, dirges and death keens and pain pain pain.

 

_—Fireflies had flared last night.  And the fires in the clearing nearby where the cadets kept watch.  Quiet chatter.  Levi had been the loudest thing around—_

“Come on, you huge fucker,” Levi begged, slamming the thick skin of the titan.  His fists were blistering, and his legs where he knelt on Erwin’s titan.

 

_—“C’mon,” Levi had urged, digging his heels into Erwin’s thighs, pressing him deeper.  “C’mon you fucker, harder.”  Erwin had groaned so low it rumbled through Levi’s bones—_

“Wake…the…fuck…up!”  Levi beat his fists were Erwin was buried in the nape of the massive titan.  He’d eaten the shrieking kid and collapsed with a horrifically human moan.  His titan hadn’t stirred since.  The surviving troops hadn’t stopped screaming and it was like that poor kid was still wailing on and on.

 

_—Last night Levi had curled around Erwin’s back and pressed his lips to the soft hairs at the base of Erwin’s neck, hands wrapped around his chest to feel his heartbeat under damp skin.  All he could hear for long moments was his own pulse in his ears—_

“I am begging, Erwin.  Don’t make me dig you out, just to find you dead.”  He bent and burned his lips kissing the titan’s neck.  “Get. Up.”  The titan groaned while Levi’s tears evaporated.  “C’mon Erwin.  Get out here and tell me how much you hate me.”

 

Levi should have left Erwin in that cool field with the fireflies and his brow sticky from loving.

 


	14. Ambiguously 'Versed Body Worship [Kiss Meme]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seductive Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last of the Kiss Memes! Huge thanks to anyone who sent one in on tumblr :) This one is rather cliché and nsfw.
> 
> Inspired by [this lovely ficlet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7478292?view_adult=true) by lostbirb. It's so gorgeous and soft.

 

 ****Erwin found Levi in his bed when he finally made it to his room, late enough that a chill had settled into the floorboards.  He was curled in a tight ball on the side of the bed Erwin preferred, covers tucked up over his nose.  Erwin mouth curled up slightly and he undressed slowly in the dark.

  
When he slipped under the covers, Levi stirred and made a soft noise, rolling to face Erwin and frowning without opening his eyes.  He was wearing nothing but one of Erwin’s shirts like a nightdress, the wide neckline slipping off his shoulders, hem riding up on naked hips when Erwin rested his hand there. Erwin felt a tired throb of want when Levi burrowed against his chest.

  
“Cold,” Levi muttered, and then, “naked.”  His fingers slipped to cup Erwin’s cock.  He opened his eyes, bleary, and raised a brow.  “Really?”

  
Erwin smiled sheepishly.  “I can’t help it.”

  
Levi sighed, as if put upon, but his lips were tight against a smile.  “Convince me, old man.”

  
“Not that old,” Erwin protested, pressing into Levi’s hand.

  
Levi smiled and relaxed back against the pillows.  “Not convinced,” he said.

  
Erwin’s mouth was pulling helplessly into a grin.  “We’ll see,” he replied, smoothing back Levi’s hair.  Levi’s eyes were still sleep-heavy and he looked boneless.  Erwin’s grin softened.  “You don’t have to do a thing.”

 

Levi was too tired to roll his eyes.  He just tilted his face in Erwin’s touch and heaved a contented sigh.

 

Erwin rolled Levi beneath him and placed a kiss to each of the bits of Levi he loved best.  Coaxing Levi’s eyes closed with a delicate kiss to one eyelid, then the other.  Between his brows at the perpetual wrinkle that only smoothed when he was this sleepy.  On the tip of his sharp nose and at the corner of his filthy mouth.  A line of open-mouthed kisses over Levi’s throat, licking at the soft moan gathering there.  Erwin placed gentle, butterfly-soft lips to Levi’s nipples through the shirt before rolling them with his tongue and teeth until the fabric was soaked through and Levi didn’t stop his quiet sighs and shivering.

  
“Erwin, please,” he whined.  He hadn’t opened his eyes since Erwin kissed them closed.  His hands rested heavy on Erwin’s shoulders.

  
Erwin stroked his stomach and cradled his hips, slipping beneath the covers.  “It’s alright, Levi,” he shushed.  “I’m getting there.”

  
Levi rolled his hips in tiny, tired circles and let out another little whine.

  
Erwin made a soft noise.  “Easy, Levi, there’s no rush.”

  
“I was asleep,” Levi huffed.  He threaded a hand loosely into Erwin’s hair and nudged his cock against Erwin’s chest.

  
“Mhm,” Erwin hummed, dipping to nuzzle the damp, hot skin.  He loved Levi there, as well, so he placed a kiss to the flushed tip.  And then kept kissing downward, nosing at pliant little sacs, and lower still to thick thigh muscle.  

  
“Where are you going?” Levi groaned, sounding very worried that Erwin was abandoning his sleepy erection.

  
“Not done,” Erwin murmured, pressing his nose between Levi’s thighs to bite gently at the insides of them.  He still had to make his way across knees and shins and cold little toes.  And the bottoms of Levi’s feet surely needed kissing…

 


	15. Modern AU, No Punctuation, I Simply Don't Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yeah, well i was warming up to write fic and i guess i wrote this?  
> angst...?

 

there had been a fight once.  just one.  but levi thought of it so often it might as well have happened a hundred different times, a hundred days in a row.  

things had been going too well.  
and levi just  
felt an itch up his spine, a sore one that made him feel all off-balance and nasty.  
he picked a fight over a pair of socks.

you never fucking pick up, he snapped. the balled up socks bounced off of erwin’s chest and erwin’s calm, ah sorry levi i forgot, made him feel small.

you dont take anything seriously, he said.  
i do, erwin said. just different things. people are different, levi. he bent and picked up the socks, put them in the hamper and levi felt all at once a hundred memories of just how seriously erwin made love to him.  it made his insides feel too big for his skin.

i cant do this anymore, levi said.

okay, erwin said, and let him go. the look on his face haunted levi, broken and fond, like he loved levi for leaving.

levi’s apartment was very large now. maybe it had gotten bigger while he’d gotten used to erwin’s. waste of money, he told erwin while he scrubbed down the bathroom. erwin didn’t answer because erwin wasn’t there.

levi saw him again, months later, at a bar. his five o'clock shadow had grown into something more wild and his eyes weren’t the same shade of blue.

im sorry, levi said in the dark of erwin’s bedroom. erwins lips were all salty wet when levi kissed him and he laid with his head on levi’s chest for a long time like a sad old family dog. levi saw one like that once. it’d gotten lost, he thought.

you’re gonna give me beard burn, levi said.  
erwin lifted his shaggy head to move, but levi pressed him back down and cradled his jaw.  didn’t say i didn’t like it.

then he said, can i stay this time?

i never wanted you to go, erwin said.

 


	16. Yumikuri ft. Eruri, Coffeeshop Version

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **yumikuri ft. eruri**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically yumikuri, as requested for the prompt “You just give off the impression that you want to murder everyone you look at," but it's pretty eruri heavy, so I'm putting it here. If you dislike yumikuri (??? ????) give it a miss. But uh, I love them.
> 
> I called this Blonde Roast because I think I'm funny.

 

It was five o’clock.  

  
Ymir knew it was five o’clock because Levi always got antsy.  He wiped the espresso machine down twice, refilled the grinders, and then cleaned off each of the tables with mechanic, jerky swipes.  He did this every day, like a tiny angry wind-up toy, and had since she started three weeks ago.

  
“What, you think he’s gonna stick around today?” Ymir watched Levi out of the corner of her eye while she made a latte.

  
Levi didn’t answer, just ducked his head very slightly and wiped down the register.  Ymir wondered if he knew the tips of his ears flushed pink.  She shrugged and put the latte on the end of the bar.

  
“Y’know,” she said, leaning on the bar next to Levi not particularly caring if the customer got their drink.  “If you smiled at the guy, you’d probably have his number already.  Amongst other things.”

  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Levi grumbled, glancing at the door, and then turning to find something else to wipe down.

  
“I’m talking about his dick,” Ymir said.  It was enormously satisfying to watch Levi sputter.  “Although, do you know how to smile?”

  
Levi whirled on her wielding the dishrag and his snarl like weapons at the same time the front door jingled.  His eyes widened.  

  
A rush of sympathetic adrenalin fizzled in Ymir’s stomach.  “Go get him, shorty,” she bent down to mutter in Levi’s ear, clapping him on the shoulder and taking the rag.

  
“Shut the fuck up,” he snarled under his breath.  He gripped the countertop too tight as he braced himself.

 

 

Ymir squeezed his shoulder before starting to walk away.  Levi didn’t shake her off this time; he leaned into her hand for half a second and Ymir was so startled she glanced up.  Levi’s blondie was standing next to an even taller blond man.  His cheeks were pink, and while it was cold out, Ymir was ready to snarl, “ _Get out_ ,” before she was willing to give this man the benefit of the doubt.

  
Levi beat her to the punch.  “What do you want?” he said quietly, lacking his weird, bitter way of flirting.  Ymir narrowed her eyes.

  
“Levi,” Blondie said.  He always said “Levi” that way, Ymir had noticed, as if he liked the taste of his name.  Maybe Blondie liked bitter things.  When she first started working here, she’d thought maybe she wanted someone to say _her_ name like that.  But seeing Levi’s knuckles go white made her think better of it.

  
“My usual,” he continued with a faint smile, then glanced at the enormous man next to him.  “Mike, what would you like?”

  
As it turned out, Mike was looking at her, and he seemed amused, though how Ymir was sure of this, she didn’t know, since his shaggy hair obscured a lot of his facial features.

  
“Mike?” Blondie asked again, gently.

  
Ymir bared her teeth at Mike and turned her attention back to Levi.  He looked like guitar strings wound too tight.  Gunmetal grey and ready to snap.

  
“I’ll pay for my own, thanks,” Mike said slowly, “but I’d like a black coffee.”

  
Levi’s ears burned scarlet when he glanced in Ymir’s direction and said, like she didn’t know the order already, “Hot chocolate with whip for Erwin, and uh— a black coffee.”  He was violent with the change and ignored the massive tip Erwin left.

 

  
“Nice name, asshole,” Ymir spat when she slapped the drinks down on the counter in front of Erwin.  His companion poked around the shop nearby.

  
“Ah, so you’re all charming here.  I thought Levi was fond of me.”  He sounded wistful.  Ymir frowned at him.  “Although,” he continued, “you’re different. You just give off the impression that you want to murder everyone you look at.”

  
“How’s that different?” she growled, curious despite herself. 

  
Erwin smiled.  “Levi saves his vitriol.”  His smiles were sad.

  
They didn’t stay that evening. 

  
Ymir made Levi a tea and took over on till.

 

 

College started the next day, which meant lots of preppy little snots ordering their preppy little drinks with voices too loud.  The tips were alright, though, and Ymir needed all the money she could get.

  
Her flannel shirt still smelled like gasoline when she turned up to her shift, stomach growling.  She liked it, though, a reminder why she shouldn’t toss drinks at the customers.  She muttered a greeting to the pretty redhead who worked the shift before her as they crossed paths in the doorway.

  
Levi’s eyes relaxed slightly at the corners when he saw her.  “You got shit on your face, brat,” he said and tossed her a granola bar.

  
“Fuck is this?” Ymir asked, scrubbing at her face.

  
“Food.  You’re a little shit when you’re hungry.”

  
“At least _I’m_ only a little shit when I’m hungry.”

  
Levi shrugged, but his eyes were bright and Ymir was getting used to him.  “You must always be hungry, then.”  As he turned to the espresso machine, he muttered, “Be discrete about eating it.”

  
He rolled his eyes when he caught Ymir waiting on customers with her mouth full.  

  
She grinned.  And turned back to the queue, swallowing hard in surprise around a mouthful of dry granola.  The girl before her looked like bottled up sunshine.  Very small rays of sunshine.  She was tiny and her smile was punctuated where her teeth bit at her lower lip.

  
“Anything tasty?” she asked.

  
“Nope,” Ymir croaked.

  
She sounded sincere when she said, “Oh, that’s a shame.” 

  
“Krista, we gotta get to class.”  A kid with wide eyes and a loud voice sidled up next to her.  “Can I order a coffee?” he said to Ymir.

  
Ymir took a deep breath.  She swallowed back several pointed insults that went down rough with her scraped up throat.  She glanced at Levi, who raised an eyebrow, and said, “Two-forty,” instead.  The kid spilled his change all over the counter, and Ymir counted to ten.  This time she stared at the ceiling.

  
When she looked back at the girl, trying not to get winded over the shocking blue of her eyes, she caught the girl biting back another smile, this one different from the first.  

  
“For you?” Ymir asked.

  
The girl, Krista she figured, nodded.  “Hot chocolate please.”

  
Ymir coughed out a garbled laugh.  “Of course, right.  Obviously.”

  
Krista tilted her head.  “Sorry?”

  
Ymir shook hers.  “Whip?”

  
Krista’s grin made dimples.  “Might as well, I figure.”

  
The kid had his change in order and announced it with a loud, “Got it!”

  
“Congratulations,” Ymir muttered.

  
Krista ducked her head to cover a snort.

 

When the clumsy kid dragged Krista out the door a few minutes later, Ymir leaned on the counter next to Levi, drained.  

  
“He was fucking annoying,” she said.

  
Levi looked at her sideways.  

  
“Don’t,” she said.

  
“Wasn’t gonna say a thing.”

  
  
Erwin came in alone that night.  This time he stayed, sitting at a table angled towards the bar, working at something on his laptop.  He smiled at Ymir when he got his drink, and she called him an asshole.  He seemed to agree with her.

  
Levi’s ears lose their flush until Erwin had left with a warm quiet, “Good night,” clearly meant more for Levi than Ymir.

  
Ymir looked at Levi sideways.

  
“Don’t.”

  
“Just sayin’, for an old guy, blondie looks okay in glasses.”  She nudged her hip towards Levi, knowing he’d get out of the way before they touched.  “Or maybe they just hide his wrinkles.”

  
Levi shuffled away from the swing of her hip.  “You never shut up, do you?”  

  
Ymir put her chin in her hands and didn’t say a thing.  She was thinking about highways and her bike and how pretty Krista’s perfect blond braids would look mussed up from a helmet.

 

  
The third time Krista got her hot chocolate, she blushed.  Ymir wished she had the excuse of a mouthful of granola when she swallowed hard this time.

  
“That’s um— It’s two-forty,” Ymir said, trying not to think that the pink suited her blue eyes, catching herself thinking instead how perfectly tiny Krista looked in her scarf and peacoat.  The scarf was pink.  Which made Ymir notice her blush all over again.  

  
Ymir was sweating by the time Krista frowned, “It was more yesterday.”

  
Ymir groaned.  “Are you really gonna argue with me?”

  
Krista flushed a bit darker.  She looked straight into Ymir’s eyes and flashed a sly little smile.  “Nope.”

  
Ymir had heart palpitations to go with her sweaty palms.

  
“You’re worse than I am,” Levi said.

  
“God, kill me now,” Ymir muttered.

 

  
  
She felt slightly better when Erwin came in alone again and stayed.

  
“Levi, he’s interested,” she said.

  
“Be quiet.”  Levi glanced at where Erwin typed away on his laptop.

  
“I’m serious.  He isn’t with Mustache.” 

  
The look Levi shot her was painfully open and hopeful; it nearly made her take a half step back.  Then he blinked and the shutters were back in place. 

  
“I said be quiet, brat.”

 

 

Erwin lingered at the counter that night at closing and Ymir tried to give them space to talk, slowly cleaning each one of the tables well enough that even Levi would probably be satisfied.

  
Levi’s voice was full of fire when he snipped goodbye to Erwin, and Erwin’s voice melted.  Ymir pretended she couldn’t hear them.  

  
She walked over to slump next to him when the store was empty.  Levi didn’t lean away.

  
“We sure do have a type, huh,” she grumbled.

  
Levi sighed and let Ymir lean her whole body against him for a few long moments.  Ymir thought it had been so long since she’d been hugged that her joints ached.

  
“Did he ask you out?”

  
“Be quiet, brat.”

  
Ymir thought maybe Erwin could do with a hot chocolate dumped on his pristine dress shirt tomorrow.  She rested her cheek on Levi’s hair and barked a pained laugh when he swatted her away.

  
  
That night, Ymir sat on the roof of her apartment complex until her nose and fingertips froze, and thought of her aching bones and if Krista even liked girls.

 

 

 

Ymir was running late to work on the day Erwin came early. 

  
She’d tinkered too long with her bike that morning, catching sight of the clock too late.  Her hair was a mess and she knew, without a doubt, that there was oil and dirt on her face.  

  
Levi looked like he was ready to take windex and a rag to her whole body but there was a queue, and Ymir forgot about her appearance in the rush and ebb of work.

  
Krista came in alone on the day Erwin came early and Ymir thought maybe wishing on all those stars had done her good after all.

  
“So, what’ll it be today?” Ymir asked, as if Krista had ever ordered anything except a hot chocolate.

  
“Hmm,” Krista said and tilted her head.  Krista had wicked eyes, Ymir realized, the kind that could take her apart at night on the roof of her apartment complex, one boneless sigh at a time.  “Dunno, maybe a hot chocolate?”  She gazed up at Ymir and grinned, crinkling her nose.  Then she laughed, letting out some of that bottled sunlight.  “Oh, you have—” she waved a hand at Ymir’s face.

  
Ymir tried not to feel filthy.  “Ah.  I got caught up.”

  
“It’s not bad,” Krista said.  “Just a bit here,” she brushed her fingertips along her own face.  Ymir’s bones ached.  

  
“Here,” Krista said softly.  She reached for Ymir’s face and Ymir had a moment to think, _I shouldn’t_ , before she bent and closed her eyes, resting her face in Krista’s palm.

  
Krista rubbed her cheekbones with her sleeve so gently Ymir had to refrain from pushing harder into her touch.  Krista made a soft noise.  “I like your freckles,” she said.  Ymir blinked her eyes open to find Krista’s gaze skittering around her face, from freckle to freckle.  “They’re like little stars.”  Krista’s thumb drew a line along her jaw, and then her voice slid low and wicked like her eyes. “Although with the dirt, maybe more like constellations,” she teased.

  
“What a cliché,” Ymir heard herself murmur.

  
There was a line of people staring at them and that was probably the only thing that saved her from kissing Krista’s palm.  

  
Levi cleared his throat.

  
Krista grinned.  “Maybe, but it’s true.”  She took her hands back.  “Extra whipped cream today, please.”

  
“Right,” Ymir said, dazed.  She was still bending down to Krista’s height she realized, and straightened quickly, scrubbing awkwardly at her neck.

  
Krista passed by the till on her way out.  “See you tomorrow?” she asked.

  
Ymir nodded. “Yeah,” she breathed, and watched her leave.  She touched her cheek, not nearly as gently as Krista had.  The man next in line coughed lightly.  Ymir blinked up to find herself staring at Erwin.  She glanced to check on Levi, who was frantically scrubbing the end of the bar.

  
“Ah,” Erwin said, like he understood everything.  “You save up something else, then.”  His mouth quirked.  “Soft suits you.  Spectacularly so, even with all the dirt.”

  
Ymir swallowed against the lump in her throat.  “Ask him,” she said.

  
Erwin smiled one of his sad smiles, but this one touched his eyes.  They crinkled at the corners and Ymir thought Erwin looked nice soft as well.  

  
“Ask. Him.”

  
Erwin looked at Levi for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.  “Ask her.”

  
“Krista,” Ymir said.

  
“Levi,” Erwin said.

  
“What,” Levi grumbled from behind Ymir.  He used that dull, bored voice he reserved just for Erwin.

  
Erwin flashed Ymir a genuine grin and she watched him take a large breath.  “I want something different today.”

  
“Good for you,” Levi said.  “Tell Ymir.”

  
Erwin shook his head.  “I would like your number.”

  
Ymir grinned and walked away.

 

 

Ymir was late for work and there was lipstick smudged on her mouth.  She didn’t realize it until Erwin came in for his hot chocolate.  

  
“I’d ask if you asked her, but it seems rather self-evident.”  He tapped his mouth.

  
“Oh shit,” Ymir muttered.  She glared at Levi.  “Has this been here all day?”

  
Levi shrug.  “Might’ve been.”

  
“You bastard.”

  
“I’ve caught you making out with her over the counter three times.  I figured you didn’t really mind a little lipstick.”

  
Ymir really didn’t, not when Krista traced all her freckles with her lips.

 

 


	17. Modern AU: Artist!Levi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As a fill for the prompt:
> 
> 7\. “You’re really drunk right now.”  
> “No I’m not, you’re just blurry.”
> 
> for part of my thanks for 200 followers on tumblr :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gently NSFW, recreation alcohol consumption. Artist!Levi, wealthy art commissioner Erwin. Very Cheesy.

 

Erwin hung in the spotlight.  Levi dreamed of him in blacks and reds, but he’d painted him in blue and gold.  

  
A museum had offered enough money for the painting that Levi had to work at keeping his mouth in a firm line when he shook his head, watching the curator’s eyes widen in surprise.  He bit the inside of his cheek against the barbwire grin trying to tear his mouth.

  
“It belongs to someone,” he said, short and sharp through his firmly pressed lips, and plucked a glass of champagne from one of the servers with a mumbled thank you. 

  
The exhibition flickered around him, but Levi listened for the molten voice that matched the golden blood in his painting.  

 

  
When Erwin finally laughed too loud, nearby, Levi kept his eyes fixed on the wide mouth in the painting to hide his relief and the way gooseflesh rippled up his neck.  He took a long sip of champagne.  It was sweet enough to make his teeth ache.  He was licking at them with a grimace when a heavy, warm arm fell across his shoulders.  His grin twisted again and it made his mouth sore like it was bleeding, so he took another quick gulp of champagne.

  
“There you are,” Erwin said, dipping to speak quietly to Levi.  

  
Levi looked up at him sideways.  “Done ass-kissing?” he asked, letting his lips unfurl a little in response to Erwin’s expression.  His mouth was damp and Levi’s fingers itched to paint it.

  
“I was looking for you,” Erwin huffed, gently indignant.  “I just kept getting lost.”  His face was too close; Levi was used to looking at him from across a room, not inches away with his champagne-sweet laughter ruffling his bangs.  

  
“You found me,” Levi said, “Good job.”  He turned his head to look at the painting because that Erwin was slightly less electrifying.  Erwin’s flesh-and-blood fingers trailed shivers across the back of his neck when he drifted off to speak to more party-goers. 

  
Erwin’s voice could only drown out the clinking and chattering for so long before Levi’s head began to throbbed with tension.  Erwin’s gaze found him, from across the gallery, just as Levi was ready to tear at someone with his razor-sharp mouth.  Erwin’s own lips curved like thick blooming rose bushes when he smirked and jerked his head towards the exit.  

  
Levi risked running a finger along that fat lower lip when they got in the cab.  Erwin held perfectly still, hot breath ghosting Levi’s fingertips, eyelashes catching the flashing lights of the city to burn with the same gold Levi had used to paint his blood on the canvas.  Erwin’s thumb drew circles on Levi’s knee through his dark jeans over and over.  Levi didn’t move his hand away and he only gave the cab driver his own address.

 

 

Levi kept a messy sketch above his drafting table, spiderwebbed black lines threaded with slashes of red, like a dreamcatcher that put his nightmares on naked display.  It was of Erwin.  

  
Erwin paused to look at it for a long while.  The neon light coming through Levi’s high windows turned him faintly blue like the painting they’d left at the gallery.  He pressed his hands to his mouth to catch a breathy laugh.

  
“What,” Levi snapped, neck flushing hot.

  
Erwin turned to gaze at him.  “Isn’t this supposed to go the other way around?” he said.

  
“What are you talking about?” Levi asked.

  
Erwin’s cheeks flushed pink. He took a breath only to have it escape in another shaky laugh.  “I mean,” he shoved a hand through his hair, “isn’t the artist supposed to fall in love with the muse?  This feels unfair.”

  
“I—Erwin.  That’s so…”  Levi’s voice cracked.  “You’re really drunk right now.”

  
Erwin had bitten his lips dark, like one of those blushing sunrises that stained the sky like blood in water.  “No I’m not, you’re just blurry.”  He dug his thumb into the corner of his mouth to stop a spindly smile.  “Which is a real shame.  I wish I could paint you, Levi.”

  
“Please stop talking,” Levi said.

  
Erwin didn’t stop.   Because if Levi really saw him, Erwin really heard him.

 

 

They lay in Levi’s bed with glasses of water on the nightstand and a quiet, warm distance between their bodies.  Erwin was naked and flaccid and the curves of his body made shadows so soft that Levi had to reach out and run his fingers through them, trying to memorize their shape.

  
“I could make do,” Erwin murmured.  His voice was low and tired.

  
Levi had to find his voice where it had fallen asleep in his chest.  “Make do with what?”

  
“My poor art skills.  If you haven’t kicked me out of bed in the morning, may I show you?”

  
“How ominous,” Levi muttered.  “Fine.”

 

  
  
Levi came to slowly, having dreamt of sunflowers and blue skies splattered with inky blood.  Cornflower eyes blinked at him.  Levi knew what he was going to paint next.

  
“May I show you now?” Erwin asked.

  
“Are you sober?”

  
Erwin laughed.  “Hungover, more like.”

  
Levi was worried his thorny mouth would tear at Erwin’s swollen lips, but he nodded and finally let his grin pull his mouth wide.

  
Erwin traced Levi’s lips first with a careful tongue, coming away unharmed and hazy.  Then he etched his fingers, with painful attention, into every one of Levi’s shivering muscle.

  
He was drawing little patterns down Levi’s stomach with his fingers and lips when Levi let slip a low moan. 

  
“Perhaps I’ll make music instead,” Erwin said, hiding a smirk by painting his own mouth with pearly droplets from Levi’s flushed head.

  
Levi rolled his eyes and wound his fingers in Erwin’s hair.  “You’re even worse sober, you know.”

  
“Thank you,” Erwin rumbled, feathering kissing across his hipbones.

 

 


	18. Modern AU: College BFs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pwp, pining, fluff, phone sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As part of my thanks for 200 followers on tumblr!
> 
> For the prompt:  
> 14\. “You’ve gotta stop doing that.”  
> “What?”  
> “Saying things that make me want to kiss you.”

 

 

Levi’s nose was cold when he woke up.  He thought the chill was why he’d startled awake, but then the silence pressed in on his ears and down on his body heavier than his thick quilts and he realized he wasn’t in his dorm room.  Switching beds made Levi uneasy and at some point he’d grown used to the endless murmur of voices outside of his room.

  
He fished his phone out from under his pillow and peered at the time.  Just past midnight; he’d only been asleep for an hour.  The prospect of trying to fall back asleep seemed distant.  

  
Levi sighed; sleep was so fickle.  He considered searching for a video to watch on his phone when he noticed he had a text and his heart gave a little shiver to match his chilly limbs.

  
From Erwin: _Goodnight ;)_

  
Levi tucked the blankets tighter around his shoulders and pulled the sweatshirt he’d worn to bed over his hands until just his fingers poked out.  He debated going downstairs for hot tea, but the cold floorboard seemed hellishly unappealing.  He curled into a tighter ball and instead typed, _night, erwin_ , not hoping for a response.  Not at all.  Erwin was probably asleep by now. He’d sent the text nearly forty minutes ago.

  
His phone lit up almost immediately.   _You awake?_

  
_what’s it look like?_  Levi was glad Erwin couldn’t see him smiling, but he tucked his grin into the neck of the sweatshirt for good measure, inhaling the little bits of Erwin that clung to the fabric.  He wondered if Erwin was laying in bed as well.

  
_Me too._

  
Levi snorted quietly and shot back a set of ellipses as full of eye-rolling as he could pack into a series of little dots.  He hoped Erwin would take the bait and tease him back.

  
Instead Erwin wrote back, _Hey, can I call you?_

  
Levi swallowed convulsively.  He put his phone down for a second and rearranged the blankets looser because they’d begun to constrict him at some point.  Then he scrambled to tug his earbuds out of the sweatshirt pocket.

  
_okay_ , he wrote when the earbuds were hooked up.

  
Erwin called immediately.

  
Levi let the vibrations of the incoming call tickle his palm for a few rings while he cleared his throat and prayed his voice didn’t crack when he answered.

  
He jammed the answer button before he could panic and closed his eyes.  “Hey,” he whispered, setting the phone by his mouth.

  
“Levi,” Erwin whispered back, then cleared his throat.  “Hello,” he said softly.  The sound of Erwin’s low voice coming through the earbuds was more than Levi had bargained for.  “Did I wake you?”

  
Levi shook his head.  “Nah,” he said, barely above a whisper.  He wished he could see Erwin’s expression.

  
“Okay,” Erwin said.  “Good.”

  
Levi was quiet, chewing on the inside of his cheek while he rubbed his fingers on the sleeves of the sweatshirt, figuring Erwin probably regretted calling him already.

  
“I couldn’t sleep,” Erwin murmured.  His voice was gentler than Levi had realized.  Usually the severity of Erwin’s ice blue eyes and hooked nose cut through how soft his tone  actually was.

  
“Yeah?” Levi said, hoping Erwin would keep talking.  He could fall asleep to his voice if he wasn’t so nervous, Levi thought.

  
“Mm,” Erwin hummed.  

  
Levi smiled.  He would bet Erwin had nodded, forgetting Levi couldn’t see him like Levi had forgotten a moment ago.  

  
“Could you not sleep because you were cold?” Erwin asked.

  
“What?” Levi blinked his eyes open.

  
Erwin’s voice was warm enough to fight off the chill of Levi’s bedroom and full of faint laughter when he said, “Well, you’re always cold.  And I’m not there to warm you up.”

  
Levi scoffed.  “Don’t need you.  I’ve got your sweatshirt, which was all I was dating you for anyways.”

  
Erwin was silent for a few breaths.  “You’re wearing my sweatshirt?”

  
“Yeah.”  Levi snuggled deeper into the folds of Erwin’s sweatshirt.  It was so big his Ma had winked at him when he wore it down to breakfast the other morning.   _That’s not yours_ , she’d teased.  “Still smells like you,” Levi mumbled.  This fact pleased him endlessly.

  
Erwin inhaled and fell silent.

  
“Erwin?” Levi said, worried he’d crossed a line.  Erwin hadn’t minded when he snagged the ratty sweatshirt before break so he didn’t think he’d be pissed now.  Levi fidgeted and inhaled Erwin’s scent again to calm his hummingbird heart.

  
“Levi,” Erwin finally said, low and heavy.  “You’ve got to stop doing that.”

  
He didn’t sound upset, and his tone piqued Levi’s curiosity.  “Doing what?”

  
Erwin swallowed loud enough that Levi could hear the scrap of his throat.  And then he laughed very quietly, those weird huffs he let out sometimes.  Levi could imagine him dragging his hand over his mouth and jaw like he did when he wasn’t sure how to react to Levi.  

  
Then he mumbled, “Saying things that make me want to kiss you.  When—”  He swallowed loud again and the rest came out in a rush, “When I’m not there with you.  I miss you Levi.  I miss you a lot.”

  
“It’s been a week,” Levi whispered, hardly able to hear himself over the thudding in his ears and Erwin’s breathing.  “You miss me?”  The way he missed Erwin scared him.  March break had never seemed to unbearably long before.

  
“Are you teasing me?” Erwin’s voice stopped wobbling and was regaining it’s rumbling traction, which Levi was inexplicably grateful for.  He sounded like he was grinning.

  
“Maybe,” Levi said.  He hadn’t been, but he liked Erwin’s voice when he was playing.  He found himself smiling into the sweatshirt again, limbs shivery and weak.

  
Erwin was definitely grinning now.  “Do you want me to kiss you?”

  
Levi swallowed his initial squawk barely.  “Maybe,” he managed again, wondering if Erwin had experience with phone calls like this and hoping his Ma was sleeping soundly.

  
Erwin huffed.  “Maybe yes or maybe no?  Would you rather sleep?” he teased.

  
“I do,” Levi blurted, embarrassingly quickly.

  
“You want it?”

  
“I want it, okay?  Shut up and kiss me.”  His toes curled and he pressed his cheek into the pillow.  His belly was getting warm, and his pelvis all tingly.  He wanted Erwin to keep going.

  
Erwin made a soft noise.  “Wish I could, Levi.”  He sounded sad for a moment before his voice got low again.  “I would, you know.  Where do you want me to kiss you?”

  
Levi’s brain stuttered to a grinding halt.  He was no good with this.  “I—”  He pressed his face deeper into the pillow and mumbled, “ _Erwin_.”

  
“Oh,” Erwin said, softly.  “I’ll tell you where I’d kiss you, then.”  

  
Levi swallowed and nodded, forcing a sound out of his tight throat.  His stomach fluttered more than his heartbeat now.

  
“I’d kiss your nose first,” Erwin whispered.

  
“My nose?”

  
“Mhm.  It’s always cold.”

  
Levi snorted.  “That’s hot.” 

  
“Nice,” Erwin said.

  
Levi rolled his eyes. 

  
“It is, though,” Erwin protested.  “How it turns up, all sharp and small, like.”  He laughed softly.  “It’s like you.  Is it cold right now?”

  
Levi touched his nose.  “Yeah.”

  
“Well, then I’d kiss it warm.  It’ll take a _lot_ of kisses,” Erwin murmured.

  
_Oh_.  “Okay,” Levi breathed.  He squirmed a little.

  
Erwin drew a breath.  “Can I kiss your eyelids?” 

  
“What?” Levi frowned. “Why?

  
“Because they’re delicate and soft and I wanna feel what that’s like under my lips.”

  
“I—yeah, you can.”  Levi touched his eyelids.  They were very soft.  The same kind of velvet as his cock.  Thinking of his cock, where it pressed up against his belly, made Levi squeeze his thighs together.

  
“I’ll be so gentle, Levi.”  Erwin’s voice was getting raspy.  Once, they made out for an hour on Levi’s bed and Erwin’s voice sounded like this after.  They’d pressed their erections together through their University sweatpants and Erwin let Levi lay on him like that, squirming until he came against Erwin’s hip.  Erwin came really quietly, with his lips pressed to Levi’s neck.  

  
Levi bit his lip.  He wished he knew if Erwin was satiny like he was. 

  
“Levi, I really wanna kiss you.” Erwin said in a rough voice.  He sighed. “I miss you.”

  
“Me too.”  Levi swallowed.  “Keep going.”

  
“Are you—” Erwin’s voice caught and he cleared his throat.  “Are you touching yourself?”

  
Levi moaned and startled them both.  He clapped a hand over his mouth and bit his palm when Erwin groaned quietly in response.  “No,” he said when he trusted his voice.  He rolled onto his belly slightly to grind himself against the bed.

  
“I am,” Erwin whispered, like he couldn’t believe he was saying it.

  
Levi pressed his face into the pillow to smother another moan.  He shoved his hand into his pants.  “Shit,” he whispered.

  
“Yeah,” Erwin shivered back, “Shit.  Are you—now?”

  
Levi whined quietly.  He was so wet.  

  
Erwin laughed a little burst of warmth.  “Okay.”

  
Levi closed his eyes, embarrassed and aroused and missing Erwin in that scary kind of way again.  “What now?”

  
“Wanna feel you, Levi.”  Erwin’s voice when he was turned on was something else.  “On my thigh again?”

  
Levi’s own voice was so gone.  “No,” he managed.

  
“In my hand?”

  
Levi pumped himself too fast, but he couldn’t help it.  He was slick enough that the slip-slide was easy and Erwin’s faint scent on the sweatshirt was so good and real.  His thighs wouldn’t stop shivering and he thought of how he must look under the blankets, humping his own hand.  He tugged faster.  “ _Erwin_ ,” he shuddered.

  
“Can I use my mouth?” Erwin asked, breathy, “Can I please?” and Levi cried into the pillow, coming with hot spurts into his palm and pajamas.  “Levi?”

  
“I’m—” Levi whined, rocking his hips instinctively and helplessly.

  
“Oh, oh Levi, okay,” Erwin whispered.  “That’s good, baby.” 

  
Levi shivered hard and his cock gave another pitiful dribble, jerking against his hand.  Oh god, what if Erwin was doing what Levi did, squirming under the covers?  He made a low noise for Erwin.  He wanted Erwin to feel good.

  
“Me too,” Erwin panted.  “’m close.”  He swallowed a groan.  “I’m so close.  I want to taste you Levi.  Can we?”

  
Levi’s face was damp tears and his hands were still shoved down his pants.  “Yeah,” he whispered past the lump in his throat.  “Miss you,” he said in a pathetically wet voice.

  
Erwin’s breath hitched and he panted.

  
“Tell me,” Levi said.  He needed to know if Erwin came.

  
“I’m—Levi, I’m,” Erwin’s voice wobbled.  “Right now. I’m—right now.”

  
“Oh god,” Levi sobbed, feeling like he might come all over again.  He listened to Erwin whine quietly through his orgasm, and let a few tears drip sideways across the bridge of his nose.  He wanted Erwin to come inside him, he thought, and his belly rolled with empty, aching heat.

  
“Next time,” Erwin said, catching his breath.  “I want you to come in my mouth.”

  
“Jesus,” Levi muttered.  He lay boneless with his eyes closed.

  
Erwin laughed, shaky.  “Can you go clean up for me?”

  
Levi didn’t want Erwin to stop talking, but he was starting to feel tacky between his legs.  “Mhm,” he whimpered.

  
“I’ll be here,” Erwin said.

  
“What?”

  
“Oh.”  Erwin paused.  “Did you want to sleep?”

  
“ _No_ ,” Levi said.

  
Erwin’s voice was so warm Levi thought it must come spilling out of his mouth looking like honey.  “Me neither,” he rumbled.

  
Levi would stir that voice into his tea and fill himself up with it.  Then he’d never be cold again.

 


	19. Canonverse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As part of my thanks for 200 followers. Which I am getting through at a snail's pace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically the prompt was: “When I said ‘Whatever helps you sleep at night.’ I didn’t mean this.” However, this turned into more of a theme, remixing the sentence, rather than using the exact dialogue. 
> 
> Post-ACWNR/pre-canon. Pining and vaguely nsfw. Soft angst and canon-typical mentions of violence.

 

 

 

Breakfast the day after an expedition was always quiet.  Everyone still whole was present because Shadis insisted on it, but most of the soldiers struggled to eat.  Levi could tell who had survived the longest based on who was choking back the tacky porridge and stringy bits of dried meat.  

    
He leaned against the wall near the doorway of the mess hall and watched one of Erwin’s newest squad members stare as Mike gnawed at a tough bit of jerky.  The recruit gagged, loudly enough for Levi to catch the wet sound, and covered his mouth.  Mike kept chewing mechanically, gazing down at his newspaper.  Erwin pushed the kid a glass of water, then he leaned forward to murmur something and the next minute the kid was nibbling on a small hunk of bread.

  
Bread did sit the best, Levi mused.   Anything other than meat did, really.

  
Erwin glanced in his direction, catching Levi staring.  Levi looked quickly down at his tea, feeling overly warm, but Erwin was already excusing himself, swinging his legs over the bench, and making his way across the hall.  He leaned against the wall beside Levi, close enough that Levi could feel his body heat, and said quietly, “What have you had for breakfast?”

  
Levi held up his teacup and raised an eyebrow.

  
Erwin frowned, but Levi cut him off before he could protest.  “I’ll eat later,” he said.

  
Erwin sighed and straightened.  “I’m giving you all today and tomorrow off,” he said instead of pushing.   He watched Levi quietly for his reaction, but Levi just shrugged.

  
“Fine,” he said and gulped a mouthful of scalding tea, looking over their remaining squad members.  Half of them sat practically on top of each other, and the other half looked as grey as the porridge.  

  
“How many of them do you think are gonna fuck tonight?” he said off-handedly.  He’d caught two of the new recruits tangled together after the last expedition, though neither sat at breakfast today.

  
Erwin glanced at him sideways.  “Does it matter?”  He was too close and far too warm.  Levi could smell his breath.  Stale tea, faintly minty.  

  
It wasn’t unpleasant and Levi shrugged again to dislodge the curious flicker of heat in his chest.  His tea was too hot.  “Whatever helps them sleep at night, I guess,” he muttered.  He half-expected his breath to come out steaming.

  
“Indeed,” Erwin murmured.  He rested a heavy hand on Levi’s shoulder, squeezing for a moment before pressing a torn off piece of bread into Levi’s free hand and striding away to speak with the Commander.

  
Levi looked down at the lump of bread briefly, then over at Erwin’s back across the mess hall.  Erwin hadn’t eaten a thing at breakfast, he realized as he chewed.  If he pressed the bit of bread back into Erwin’s fist, he wondered if he would receive another firm touch over the spot where he could still feel the Erwin’s fingers against his muscle.

  
Erwin clapped a hand to Shadis’s back and Levi turned on his heel to leave, struggling to get the bread down.  His throat was too dry despite his tea and the bread kept lurching back up.

 

* * *

 

A long time after the moon had risen, Levi stood by his window looking out over the grounds.  He still thought it was ridiculous that Erwin had gotten him a room like this.  With a desk and a sofa and a bed worth enough to feed an entire block of people in the Underground.

  
_Condolences_ , Levi thought bitterly sometimes, eyeing the bed he hardly used.   _Sorry your friends are dead_.  The hell was a bed like that supposed to do to fill the hole?  It felt like a mockery even if Erwin hadn’t meant it that way.  Levi sighed.

  
An impish smile and a final salute tattooed the insides of his eyelids, so Levi left his room to walk the grounds.  There were ghosts out there, too, and the stars were full of Isabel, but the cool air seemed to mellow them so they were just wisps of foggy breath at the back of Levi’s neck and curling around his ankles.

  
Levi might have been a ghost as well, for how much he belonged anywhere.  Maybe he was, and this was hell.  

  
He stretched his hands above his head, up and up like he could reach Isabel’s stars, and thought of bread pressed into his palm and sturdy, calloused warmth.  He wondered how Erwin slept at night.  The twists of his foggy exhales reminded Levi of those tangled up recruits, and something sticky and barbed snagged at his insides.  The bread he’d finally choked down mid-morning made a bid for his throat. 

  
The ghosts dogged him all the rambling, winding way to the Squad Leader’s quarters.  He paced this route nearly every night, but he rarely stopped.  Something burned under his skin tonight, though.  Panting breaths and moans and slick limbs.  Levi’s spine itched, and his shirt felt painful against his skin.  

  
Light spilled through the cracks in Erwin’s doorway still.  Levi paused before knocking, listening for heavy breaths or creaking furniture.  It was silent, and the sticky feeling subsided, cooled into something queazy and thick like their grey porridge.  It weighed him down enough that his feet touched the ground again.  He supposed he was real after all, and hell was just life.  Or life was hell.  Didn’t matter either way when Levi was the one left living.

 

He knocked too loudly to drown out his brain.

  
“Come in,” Erwin called, sounding mildly surprised.

  
Levi peered around the door into the room, apprehensive and cursing himself for knocking.  Erwin’s quarters were identical to his own.  A bed, a sofa, a beautiful wooden desk.  It seemed like less of a waste on Erwin. 

  
“Levi,” Erwin said, definitely surprised.  He sat at his desk, angled to face in so his back was to all the bright stars out the window.  He put his pen down.  “Can I help you?”  There were ink smudges on his shirt and he looked a great deal more tired than Levi felt.

  
Levi shuffled, feeling foolish under soft lamplight rather than inky night.   _Of course_ he was real; he shouldn’t need heavy hands to hold him to earth.  And if Erwin wanted to fuck out his adrenaline, it certainly wasn’t Levi’s business.  But the tension uncoiled from his spine nonetheless.  

 

“You aren’t asleep,” he blurted, sounding snappish to his own ears, but it was more that his relief so sharp, it seeped into his voice, thick on his tongue.  The curious flicker of warmth came alive in his chest again.  Levi wished it was from a gulp of scalding tea.

  
“Neither are you,” Erwin replied, raising a brow.  He smiled slightly at where Levi was stuck half-in and half-out of his room.  “Come in,” he repeated, gentle and rough, like his hands.

  
“Fine,” Levi said, taking a step into the room and gripping the doorknob too tightly to hide the tremor in his hands.  He glanced over towards Erwin, hoping for some kind of hint as to what he was supposed to do next, but his eyes caught on Erwin’s desk instead.  It was littered with papers and badges, torn up bits of bloody fabric.

  
“Erwin?” he said quietly over the click of the door closing.  “What the hell is that?”

  
Erwin frowned and looked down at his ink stained hands.  “Oh.  I’m just finishing a write-up,” he said.  His eyes were washed out like skies after a rainstorm when he glanced back up at Levi.

  
Levi’s frown match Erwin’s when he took an unsure, coltish step into the room.  He’d never been in Erwin’s quarters before.  It smelled like he’d buried his face in Erwin’s chest and his own chest wobbled with his footsteps.  His gaze kept skittering back to the bloody fabric on the desk, though.  “Want help or something?” he asked, and then shrugged.  “Not like I’m sleeping.”

  
“Ah, no.  Thank you, though.”  Erwin arranged his mouth in what looked to Levi like a very shitty attempt at a smile.

  
Levi came to a halt in from the the desk and looked down at the mess.  “I thought Shadis was handling the letters for families,” he said slowly.  He took a breath and looked carefully at the sheets of paper, covered in names and ages, a few scattered notes about personalities and achievements.  A favorite book.  Preferred dinners.  Levi’s gut lurched.  Cause of death.   “Erwin, we don’t include cause of death in those letters.”  He looked up sharply.  “What the hell are these?”  

  
“Shadis does the official ones, you’re correct,” Erwin said, sounding very weary.  “These are for me.”

  
“Why?” Levi crossed his arms and took a step back.

  
Erwin rubbed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes, leaving behind livid ink stains.  “So I don’t forget.”  He gestured to the badges.  “They died at my orders.”

  
“Erwin…” Levi didn’t know what to say and swallowed hard.

  
“You said this morning, Levi, ‘whatever helps them sleep at night.’”  Erwin lifted a shoulder in a shrug that made him look painfully young and dragged barbs through Levi’s insides again.

  
“I meant fucking, Erwin.  Not beating the shit out of yourself.”

  
Erwin shook his head.  “You misunderstand me.  I’m remembering them.”

  
“Let their _families_ do that.  Shit, Erwin.”  Levi’s fingers took up their faint tremor again so he shoved them up through his hair.  Erwin’s eyes were wide, the ink stains making him look like he hadn’t slept in days.  He probably hadn’t.  “Does it help?” Levi asked, raising his eyebrows and gesturing to the grotesque display on the desk.  “Does that help you sleep at night?”

  
Erwin grinned lopsidedly, with a canine exposed, wolfish and sending Levi’s stomach shivering in time with his fingers.  “Oh, not at all.”  

  
“Then fuck that, Erwin.”

  
Erwin’s grin softened back into a gentle frown.  “I’m nearly done,” he said.  “If you want to have a seat, please do.  I can make tea in a little while, if you like.”

  
“Fuck the tea,” Levi grumbled, sitting down heavily on the sofa.

 

Erwin raised his brows and looked ready to snort disbelievingly.  “I’ll make some in a little while,” he repeated quietly.  “Nearly done.”  

  
Levi _did_ snort disbelievingly and settled back with a creek of leather.  Erwin’s couch was cold and stiff, unlike Levi’s, but it was easy to get lost in the faint scratching of Erwin’s pen nib while he waited for tea, the insides of his eyelids turned gold from the candlelight and decorated with hazy, half-formed images of calloused hands, blunt fingers, and sturdy thighs tethering him to earth.

 

  
He woke with a stiff neck and a nose full of stale mint and hay and boot-leather, all laced with familiar sweat.  He groaned and winced, lifting his head from where it rested back against a leather sofa that he knew immediately wasn’t his own.  Across the room, Erwin dozed with his head in his arms, face down amongst the bloodied Survey Corps badges from his dead soldiers.  Levi’s throat ached.

  
“Erwin,” he muttered.  “Hey, Erwin.”

  
Erwin’s shoulders shifted and he made a low sound that kindled every bit of latent warmth in Levi’s chest to full-blaze.  Erwin lifted his head and squinted at Levi.  The candles had gone out, so the moonlight turned his hair silver and made the shadows under his eyes frightful.  

  
“Go the fuck to bed,” Levi said.

  
Erwin sat back in his chair and rubbed at his neck.  “I’m nearly done,” he murmured, squinting down at papers he almost certainly couldn’t see in the dark.

  
“Now,” Levi insisted.

  
Erwin huffed, a sleepy, thick sound.

  
“Erwin, _now_.”  Erwin looked like he was about to lay his head back down amongst the mess on his desk, so Levi continued.  “In your bed.”

  
Erwin stood in slow motion, liquid shadows and stark moonlight.  Levi frowned at the way his spine crackled.  

  
“Are you?”  Erwin asked, shoving his hand through his messy hair and looking disgruntled when his fingers got stuck on a tangle.  “You should sleep more.”

  
Levi shrugged.  “Yeah, I guess.”  He didn’t think he’d fall back asleep, but dawn couldn’t be far off and he liked to sit in the grey morning light while the sun burned the ghosts away.  He made to stand, but Erwin changed his trajectory and threw himself down onto the couch next to Levi.

  
“Sleep,” he mumbled, leaning heavily against Levi’s side.  He blazed warmer than Levi’s chest.  Levi could curl up in warmth like that.

  
“You’re one to talk,” Levi grumbled, so suddenly wide awake he was certain he wouldn’t get back to sleep all week.

  
Erwin hummed, shifting to fold his arms, crossing his ankles.  Levi wondered if his bones settled like houses with the way they cracked and popped.

  
“Erwin, get into your damn bed,” Levi hissed. 

   
“Levi, _sleep_ ,” Erwin sighed.  A moment later, his head drooped to rest against Levi’s and his breaths came slow and hot in Levi’s hair.  Levi counted each one and kept watch.  He was swelling embarrassingly in his uniform and his heart had dropped into his stomach.  He tried his best not to move at all.

 

Erwin stirred sometime just before dawn.  The room had turned that strange warm shade of silver Levi liked best and he’d softened again to his relief.  

 

“Levi,” Erwin murmured, voice liquid and threatening to stir Levi back to wanting things he shouldn’t. “Sleep.”  He fumbled for Levi’s head and tucked Levi against his warm, bare neck, pining him down with a carefully slung arm.  Levi closed his eyes and counted Erwin’s rapid heartbeat where it pounded against his.  He slipped off around the time Erwin’s pulse slowed.

  
The next time Levi woke, he lay on his back with a mouthful of sunlit hair, a heavy head resting against his collarbones, and a warm arm draped around his waist.  He prayed to the sleeping stars his own heartbeat wouldn’t wake Erwin.  Although, if Isabel really was up there, she was cackling loud enough to wake the titans.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was originally going to be about sparring, but this is what happened and I don't want to force a story to be told in a way that isn't organic. I still would like to write the sparring angst. I think about it a lot. But then again, I've got 99 WIPS that I think about a lot...


	20. Canonverse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short snippet. Gently NSFW.
> 
> For the fill, "reunion kisses." (Of sorts, I took quite a few liberties here...)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every night is a reunion when you could die at any time.

 

 

 

After the tense pause that followed their accidental first kiss—the shocked heartbeats filled up with Erwin staring wide-eyed at Levi, who had closed his eyes, brows crinkled, lips still pressed too-hard to Erwin’s—Levi became so affectionate that Erwin tried very hard not to think how long it had been since someone had been gentle with Levi.  He regretted the roughness of their meeting each time Levi melted a little under the kisses Erwin pressed to his hair, or the way Levi wound around his body like a cat weaving between his ankles, but rather than looking for scraps of food, Levi seemed starved for affection.  He still bit, and he’d scratch anyone other than Erwin, but night turned him soft as a kitten.

  
And then Levi’s preference for order and ritual seeped into their evenings in a way that stole Erwin’s breath and scattered the bits of his splintered heart a little further.  

 

It took Erwin a week to realize Levi systematically checked him over.  He’d slink into Erwin’s office each night with a scowl and hunched shoulders, sometimes carrying food, sometimes with cups of tea cradled like treasure between his clawed fingers.

  
“ _Levi_ ,” Erwin would say each time he stalked in without knocking.  Though surprise colored his tone less and less, and he thought he sounded like those young lovers and mothers who were so relieved to see their hearts returned to them still beating after an expedition, waiting along the roadside with large eyes, starved like Levi’s.  To mask his pathetic voice, Erwin would promptly stuff whatever Levi had brought him into his mouth.

  
Tonight, Levi eyed his face suspiciously from his hairline to his nose, over his cheeks, bulged out rodent-like with bread.

  
“Something wrong?” Erwin asked, swallowing hard around the bread.  It was a little stale.

  
Levi scoffed.  “Can you smell like Mike can?” he asked, avoiding looking at Erwin’s lips.  They’d kissed the night before until Levi’s own swelled red and shiny, with Levi shoved up against his office wall, Erwin’s thigh shoved between his legs.  Levi shuddered so violently Erwin expected claws, but he just pulled away to retreat to his room with a stiff walk, ears all burned up.  Erwin had laid in bed staring at the ceiling for a long, long time.

  
Erwin laughed.  “Are you making fun of my nose?”

  
Levi’s eyes finally caught on his lips as he spoke.  “Yes,” he said.  He swallowed.

  
“I can’t,” Erwin smiled.  “Shame, too.  It’s useful.”  

 

Levi shuffled, turning his attention to Erwin’s shoulders with a ferocious frown.  “You shouldn’t hunch,” he said.  His hands clenched at his side. 

  
Erwin took in Levi’s own hunch, his blush, his fumbling feet.  “I see,” he murmured, and wrapped his hands around Levi’s hips to pull him into his lap.  Levi went pliantly, replacing his gaze with rough hands on Erwin’s body, and let out a heavy sigh that left Erwin wondering if this what he’d wanted the entirety of the last week, to be held instead of devoured against a wall like they were desperate animals.  

 

He let Levi brush his hands through his hair, along the bump of his nose, dragging at his lower lip, smiling faintly at Erwin’s crooked lower teeth.  Levi was silent and serious after that.  Erwin tried not to shudder when Levi traced his neck and down his stomach.  He’d put his claws away and it had been the long time since anyone was gentle with Erwin.

  
Erwin took Levi to bed that night and tried to pour his gratitude into Levi’s body.

 

Levi used his mouth to check Erwin down after that.  Every evening, little dry kisses from his hairline to his pelvis, where he inevitably got distracted before he reached Erwin’s toes.  Sometimes, when Levi was too tired, body limp against Erwin’s, Erwin kissed _him_ instead.  There was less of Levi than himself to paint with tongues and hands, but it was still more than Erwin deserved.  Even Levi’s winding about his ankles—and his thighs and his lips, each of his ribs until Erwin breathed him in like a desperate animal—even that couldn’t fill all of his cracks.

  
He thought Levi knew it by the way he dug his heels into Erwin’s hips to hold him inside, kitten-soft in the pitch-black of Erwin’s bedroom.

 

 


	21. Modern AU: Lingerie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As part of my thanks for 200 followers (which, yes, I'm still getting through rip).
> 
> This one is definitely nsfw. pwp/panties/fluff & general married lovings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was:
> 
> “Come here.”  
> “Why?”  
> “Just come here.”

 

“Come here.”

  
Erwin immediately stopped scrubbing at his teeth and spat into the sink, head shooting up at the same time, nearly splattering toothpaste and spit all over his chest.  Levi’s voice sounded funny.

  
“Why?” he called through the door into their bedroom.  “What’s wrong—” he began to say at the same time Levi growled, “Just come here.”  But Erwin rounded the doorframe at that moment and they both fell silent.  Erwin stumbled to a shaky stop with his hand braced against the doorway.  Levi looked  _shy_.

  
He stood with his feet braced wide and his spine stick-straight, battle-ready, except what he wore wasn’t armor.  Delicate grey lace clung to his hips, cradling his soft cock.  Little bits of his coarse black hair stuck out the sides of the panties and the hair on his head was mussed, standing on end, but the dark trail that trickled from his navel into the dove-grey lace left Erwin’s mouth falling open helplessly.  And the way the color looked against his skin, the spiderweb-thin fabric against Levi’s sharp angles and thick muscles…  Erwin licked at his mouth and took a wheezing breath.

  
Levi shifted.  “Say something,” he muttered.  He looked at his feet and then up at Erwin, gnawing on his lower lip.

  
“ _Why?_ ” Erwin said again.  He couldn’t quite breathe and attributed most of it to the rush of blood to his cock; he had to struggle not to palm himself.

  
Levi flushed immediately and violently, chest going splotchy with embarrassment.  He jerked his head to look away from Erwin, who had just realized with his own flare of heat that Levi’s nipples were erect.  

 

“You said you’d be into it,” Levi mumbled.  “A while ago.  And I…”  He trailed off lamely and dragged a hand across his face, pressing his fingers against his closed eyes.  “Oh, _fuck_.”

  
Erwin stopped gaping like he’d been slapped and crossed the room, falling to his knees so fast Levi startled and hissed, “ _fuck_ ,” again and Erwin got rug burn on his bare knees.  He brought his hands to rest on Levi’s shivering thighs, trying to steady him and apologize at once.

  
“I meant what on earth have I done to deserve this?”  He placed a kiss to Levi’s hip, just above that perfect grey lace.  He couldn’t think of a damn thing.

  
Levi peered down at him through his fingers and then looked away again. “Shut up,” he grumbled.  He looked slightly mollified, though, and the corner of his mouth curving up just barely.

  
Erwin fumbled with his briefs, tugging them down so Levi could see the swelling head of his cock.  He left it peaking out, held tight to his lower belly by the waistband of his briefs because, fuck, it felt good, and he was a breath away from humping Levi’s leg.  He watched Levi’s eyes flicker to his erection.    

 

“See?” Erwin said.  He kneaded Levi’s thighs.  He was getting wet; he could feel it oozing in hot little droplets.

  
“Okay,” Levi said slowly, blinking, a little dazed.  He was hardening in the panties, tiny throbs that Erwin could see through the thin lace.  Erwin dipped forward to place a light kiss to the swelling little bulge.  Levi’s breath caught and he tangled his fingers in Erwin’s hair.  They were shaking, Erwin realized, and he squeezed his eyes shut, arousal fading briefly to be replaced by a bone-deep ache.

  
“You’d been sleeping like shit,” Levi shivered out nonsensically.  He nudged slightly at Erwin’s head for another kiss to his cock.

  
Erwin pulled back to frown up at him.

  
“Means work is bad,” Levi said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.  And it had, work had been _horrendous_ , haunting Erwin after hours and leaving him gritty and sore-headed in the morning. 

 

And so Levi had worn panties for him.  Like it was the easiest thing in the world.  

 

Erwin’s breath left him in a rush.  He felt like he’d been rammed in the gut.

  
He pressed his lips to Levi’s soft hip instead of his cock, then brushed butterfly kisses across his shivering stomach before closing his eyes and resting his forehead there, feeling Levi breathe.  Erwin dragged his hands up to cup Levi’s lace-clad ass, so gently, running his fingers along the intricate fabric.

  
“Erwin?” Levi asked.  His fingers still trembled slightly where they wound through Erwin’s hair.

  
“Fuck, Levi,” Erwin said, lips brushing his stomach as he spoke.  “Fuck,” he murmured, kissing Levi’s curling trail of hair.  He wasn’t sure what to say so he dug his fingers harder into Levi’s ass.  Levi swallowed a quiet sound and let him palm his ass roughly, holding very still while Erwin shuddered.  “Oh, _fuck_.”  He nuzzled Levi’s cock where it stretched and dampened the silvery grey lace.  

 

Levi’s hips bucked.  “Erwin?” he panted.

  
Erwin kissed and licked at his cock, hips rocking.  “I can’t believe you, Levi.”

  
Levi fisted his hair and pressed himself against Erwin’s mouth.

  
“ _God_ ,” Erwin growled.  He looked up at Levi, suckling on the tip of his cock through the fabric.  Levi’s eyes drooped.

  
“I take it you like them, then.”  He let out a full-body shudder when Erwin bared his teeth to nip at the lace.

  
“You’re amazing.”

  
Levi rolled his eyes.

  
“I love you,” Erwin growled.  Erwin loved him so much he wanted to tear the panties off with his teeth, to rip up the bedsheets and fuck a hole through the mattress.  He wanted kiss Levi so softly that Levi cried.  He gritted his teeth and inhaled sharply through his nose.  “I love you,” he said more gently, all the tension bleeding out and leaving him weak-limbed.

  
“That’s nice,” Levi tried to snip, but it came out more like a whine since Erwin latched back onto him just as he tried to speak.  He pulled Erwin’s head away from his cock.  “Get on the bed,” he said, just as gently.  Erwin thought he meant, _I love you more_.

  
Erwin grinned and stood, picking Levi up as he went, tossing him onto the bed and laughing breathlessly in time to Levi’s shrill squawk.

 


	22. Canonverse Kiss Meme Fill (Angsty Sex)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was for the fill "moving around while kissing, stumbling over things, pushing each other back against the wall/onto the bed." I, uh, sort of covered that.
> 
> NSFW. Hurt comfort? PWP...
> 
> Warnings for: Erwin's canonverse mental state, angst, depression, some vague suicidal ideation. Dear anon, I'm sorry this turned out so angsty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason I listened to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywIgQBnBndI) on repeat while writing this?

 

 

Levi found Erwin in his office with an open bottle of expensive alcohol sitting by his elbow and ink stained fingers cramping over papers. He peered around the door, pointed-nose first, with a curious expression on his face, but Erwin didn’t have time to ask what he wanted before his mouth thinned and his brows pinched.

  
Erwin leaned back and watched Levi shut the door, crossing the room with an ill tempered, stalking gait, narrowed eyes fixed on the alcohol. Erwin cleared his throat to speak, but Levi continued stepping into his space, killing his voice as he took hold of Erwin’s chin and leaned in to sniff at his lips. Erwin sighed heavily at the bite of Levi’s skin, wanting the push of his overfull lower lip. His breath ruffed Levi’s hair.

  
Levi made a face, nose wrinkling. “The alcohol would have been an improvement,” he said in a tired, low voice, close enough to kiss. But he didn’t, even though Erwin’s eyes were drooping and his lips were parting for Levi. He pulled back with his eyes relaxing at the corners, and released Erwin’s chin. “You haven’t eaten,” he said.

  
Erwin opened his mouth to speak again, but Levi waved him off with a shake of his head.

  
“Your breath is sour,” he said, frowning. “I should have brought something to eat.”

  
Then he pointedly ignored the papers on Erwin’s desk and hitched himself up to sit on it, thighs spreading across the surface to obscure the papers. He held out his hand for the bottle. “Do you have something here?”

  
Erwin nodded. He had dinner over on the couch where he couldn’t see it, cold and congealed into some kind of thick mess. He’s rather have Levi’s thighs on his lips and his cock down his throat.

  
Levi’s fingers twitched nearly playfully. Erwin caught them and brought his hand to his lips, dragged his mouth across the soft skin on the back of Levi’s hand. Then a brush of cracked lips across split knuckles. Harder. Sloppy, biting, desperate. Rusty starbursts of blood in his mouth. His head was roaring, and Levi’s cold hand felt so good, like Levi had reached inside his head and laid a palm to his throbbing brain. He bit back a sigh, resisted closing his eyes and pressing his face to Levi’s knees or begging for Levi to take him apart, to reach inside his brain with his hot little tongue and turn him inside out. He looked up to catch Levi biting his own cracked lips, brows reaching for his hairline.

  
Levi’s ears burned pink. “Erwin,” he huffed. His thighs twitched in the corner of Erwin’s vision.

  
“Mm?” Erwin sat back in his chair, watching Levi’s eyes flick from his crotch to his chest over to the warm amber alcohol. Erwin took breaths to match Levi’s, little too fast, but slower than his tired, sick head. Levi put the stopper back in the bottle and rested his boots on Erwin’s knees, and Erwin lost the rhythm with a sharp, audible inhale.

  
Levi’s throat bobbed. He pushed his boots heavier against Erwin’s knees. “Erwin,” he said again, sharper.

  
Erwin drew a rattling breath, looping his fingers around Levi’s leather-covered ankles. He cleared his throat. More rusty bursts. “Yes?” They both blinked at the low rumble.

  
Levi’s mouth thinned like it had when he saw the bottle on Erwin’s desk, then he tapped his toes to Erwin’s thighs. “Off,” he said softly, shattering his frown into something very sad for a beat. Erwin dipped his head to turn his attention to Levi’s boots so he wouldn’t have to look at the downward curve of Levi’s mouth.

  
Levi wound his fingers into Erwin’s hair, leaning forward to shove his lips to Erwin’s hairline while Erwin gently stripped Levi’s boots off. Distantly, Erwin thought Levi must have been very good a braiding hair. He also realized he’d hardly said a word since Levi had poked his nose into his office, so he searched and searched for his voice. But his head was swollen and sore and his tongue was tired of dripping bullshit. So he leaned into Levi’s touch and kneaded at his feet when he’d placed his boots neatly on the floor. Levi mercifully didn’t press him.

  
He hummed and let go of Erwin’s hair, fumbled for the buttons on his shirt, letting Erwin silently press his mouth to his bare neck, and then down his chest as his shirt fell away until it hung open to his pants. He cupped the back of Erwin’s head, guiding him to a nipple and holding him there, fingers winding back into his hair.

  
Erwin groaned softly and leaned his forehead to Levi’s chest, lipping at the hardening nipple before pulling it into his mouth, sucking rhythmically, closing his eyes, hands coming up to span Levi’s back and hold him in place.

  
“Shit,” Levi sighed shakily. His legs came to wrap, twitching, around Erwin’s chest, hot little feet digging into Erwin’s back. “I’m shit at this.” His fingers held Erwin’s hair tighter. Erwin just nuzzled and rolling his tongue around Levi’s hard nipple. “ _Ah_ ,” Levi arched his back. He pushed at Erwin’s head until he moved onto Levi’s other nipple, hard and such a pretty dusty brown that Erwin rubbed his nose to it appreciably before taking it between his lips.

  
Levi’s thighs shook. “Nothing’s gonna come out,” he huffed when Erwin settling back into his slow sucking.

  
Erwin groaned quietly against his chest and suckled harder. He could feel Levi’s breath hot in his hair and knew Levi had curled his entire body around Erwin to hold him close. His sides heaved under Erwin’s palms, ribcage expanding and contracting. He wanted Levi to talk and talk and fill his sore head with enough gravely, off-beat sentences to drown him. Levi stroked a thumb along Erwin’s cheekbone and his hips rocked. He let out a soft moan into Erwin’s hair.

  
Erwin pulled back with a gasp, staring up at Levi, panting. His mouth was a wet mess, he knew. It felt like blood smeared all across his chin. Levi stared back panting just as hard. His breath was sour. Erwin would let Levi eat him alive.

  
“I want you,” Erwin groaned, finding his voice, reaching for Levi’s face, shoving his hair back and leaning up to press his open mouth to Levi’s. Levi shoved back, too hard, biting Erwin’s lips.

  
“I’m bad at this,” he said into Erwin’s mouth, words on an upward slanting moan, crackling.

  
Erwin was twitching uncomfortably in his pants, had been since Levi propped his booted feet on his legs. “I beg to differ,” he said, dragging a kiss and a bite across Levi’s cheekbones, gripping the shaggy part of his hair to tilt his head back and rest his teeth against Levi’s throat, butting and butting at his jaw.

  
“Not the fucking,” Levi panted, all gravel.

  
Erwin stopping nipping, mouth crumpling, to look up at Levi. Levi shivered, shirt slipping off one shoulder. Erwin wanted to tell him to leave because he made Erwin want to cry, but he knew he’d jerk off to the idea of him and pass out cum-stained and drunk. “The what?” he managed instead.

  
“The—” Levi swallowed. “Nothing. The nothing. The talking and shit.” His chest flushed.

  
Levi was so good.

  
“Fuck,” Erwin said succinctly. He really ought to tell Levi to leave him alone with his sick brain. But he stood instead, dragging Levi up with him, hitching him up and groaning when Levi wrapped warm, steel legs about his waist. Papers fluttered to the ground. “You’re good at the sex,” he said.

  
Levi bit his mouth.

  
Erwin stumbled away from the desk, trying to make it to his bedroom with Levi nipping along his jaw and hard against his stomach. He shoved Levi against the wall next to his bedroom door.

  
“You’re good at the rest,” he said.

  
Levi moaned and stifled himself by shoving his mouth against Erwin’s neck. “Don’t,” he growled.

  
Erwin pressed his hips to Levi’s. Levi hissed. “Hold on,” he said, fumbling for the door with one hand. Levi squirmed and let his legs down for Erwin to release him, traipsing off-balance into the dark of Erwin’s bedroom, stripping unceremoniously as he went. His shirt made less noise than the papers on its way down.

  
Moonlight was harsh on him, turning his peaks bone-white and his dips to black voids. He looked over his shoulder, muscles twisting. “Off,” he said with his swollen mouth, brows tilting up with his desperate tone.

 

  
Erwin wondered how Levi could look at him the way he did, spread out on Erwin’s bed, slowly pumping himself while Erwin took off his clothes. He looked at Erwin like Nile looked at Marie and Erwin ought to tell Levi to go find someone like Marie to love. Someone good like him and soft enough for his edges.

  
But Levi was propped up on _his_ pillow, moonlight getting trapped in his scars and dripping with the beads of fluid oozing out of the tip of his cock and Erwin wasn’t a good man.

  
He told Levi so, as he kissed up the scars on his belly to nose at his nipples again, because he loved those nipples with a stupid kind of desperation. Levi’s cock dragged sticky against his chest. “I’m not good,” Erwin breathed into Levi’s neck.

  
Levi shivered. “You’re not okay,” he said, like he was correcting a mistake.

  
“I’m bad,” Erwin admitted, his entire body sighing at finally letting the sentence out past all the bullshit. It felt like an orgasm and left him cold and sticky.

  
Levi dragged Erwin gently by his hair to push their puffy lips together, arching up, licking into Erwin mouth. Erwin groaned and let him in, jaw drooping. Levi wrapped his legs around Erwin’s waist to dig his heels into Erwin’s ass. Erwin wanted to be _in_ him so deep he wouldn’t be able to find his way back out. Instead, Levi kissed him single-mindedly until Erwin was certain he was going to eat him alive, and Erwin dripped steadily, wet at the thought.

  
Levi threaded a hand down between them to slip over Erwin’s cock. His breath hitched when his fingers slid across the slippery drips. “I know bad,” Levi finally said, squeezing. His head rested heavily back against the pillows and he looked half-drunk. “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were.”

  
Erwin didn’t want to fuck him, though, he wanted to love him.  But soft people made love with their breakable beautiful limbs, not Erwin. “Levi—” he began.

  
Levi growled. “You’re not okay,” he said again. His thumb rubbed a delicate circle over the tip of Erwin’s cock.

  
Erwin choked down a moan, barricading it behind a frown.

  
“It’s different.” Levi scowled just as ferociously.

  
Erwin’s sick and slow and tired brain purred. He ought to tell Levi to go.

  
“Levi—” he tried again.

  
Levi shook his head. His grip on Erwin loosened.

  
Erwin squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in Levi’s neck.

  
“If you don’t want to fuck, fine,” Levi said. His voice was brittle. Erwin could feel his head beating wildly against his chest. “But I want to,” he said, rushed and quiet.

  
“You’re so good,” Erwin said against his neck. Levi shivered.  Erwin didn't want to fuck.

  
“I’m really not,” Levi said.

  
Erwin smiled wryly against his pulse. Life was brutal and his limbs weren’t soft and he knew he’d never tell Levi to go. He beg him to stay and turn him inside out over and over.  He didn't want to fuck, but he'd happily starve on Levi's scraps.

 

  
When Levi shakily guided Erwin into his body with oil-slick fingers from helping Erwin open himself up, watching where Erwin disappeared inside, Erwin had to hold his breath to shut himself up.

  
“Breathe,” Levi panted, squeezing around him, hot and tight. His hands gripped Erwin’s ass to hold him flush and he trembled.

  
Erwin exhaled a rough, loud groan and it broke something in his chest on the way out.  He tried to pull back, wanting to push back in all over again, but Levi held him still.

  
“Wait,” he hissed. “Too close.”  A vein swelled livid in his forehead as he held back from coming.  Erwin dropped his head to Levi’s shoulder with another groan. Then he tucked Levi up against himself and rolled until Levi lay splayed across his chest.

 

 

It took Erwin leaning back against the headboard, buried inside Levi, while Levi sat panting, hard and dripping, head leaning on Erwin’s shoulder to realize Levi wasn’t fucking either. Levi hadn’t moved other than to bite Erwin’s collarbones and roll his nipples in several long minutes, just sat on Erwin, full-up with him, shivering and breathing in hitching hiccups that had Erwin rubbing his back.

  
Erwin came when Levi kissed him. Levi knelt to straddle him, shoving himself against Erwin’s belly, licking at his lips, half-missing blindly, fumbling with his fingers to touch where he was stretched around Erwin, and Erwin tipped right off the edge thinking of Levi wanting to hold him inside as long as he could.

  
At the flood of wet warmth in his body and Erwin moaning, shuddering and surprised, into his mouth, Levi stiffened and dribbled across Erwin’s stomach with a tired sob.

  
He didn’t get off Erwin when he was finished gasping through his orgasm and Erwin didn’t want to pull out.

 

"Are you hungry?" Erwin rasped, pushing Levi's hair back.  Levi opened one eye to glare up at him.  His head rattled with Erwin’s heartbeat.

 

"As hungry as you are," he muttered.  Erwin let him bite at his lips again.

  
Levi fell asleep with Erwin still mostly inside him, huffing little breaths against Erwin’s neck, and Erwin struggled to drag the quilt up over his shoulders without disturbing him. He slipped out accidentally and Levi whined unhappily against his skin.

  
“You’re going to wish you’d washed up,” Erwin told him gently, resting his head against the headboard.  His orgasm was dripping out of Levi onto his own thighs.

  
Levi growled.

  
Erwin pressed his lips to Levi’s hairline and settled with his arms curled around Levi’s back, praying for sleep. Tacky semen hardly registered as something disgusting, not compared to scattered limbs. Life was brutally short and Levi nestled against his chest with limbs soft in sleep. His exhausted brain purred louder. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well then.
> 
>  
> 
> Istg every time I post something, I hand y'all every single kink I have on a platter.


	23. Modern AU: NSFW Prompt Fill (flashing the other)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *crawls out of the depths* uh, i guess i still write??
> 
> NSFW Prompt Fill for "flashing the other"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This barely covers the fill. I like taking liberties (and long breaks from writing apparently rip).
> 
> *gently nsfw, body worship*
> 
> I listened to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQTHAGRYGiE) this a lot while I wrote.

 

 

The bed was empty when Levi clawed his way to consciousness.  He had a fleeting memory of a broad palm brushing his hair off his forehead and the press of damp lips, and he was disappointed to find Erwin’s side of the bed still warm.  He must have barely missed him.

  
The floorboards were cold under Levi’s feet and the sunlight battered his face as he followed the faint clinking noises coming from the kitchen.  Winter made his joints ache and his back muscles stiffen.  He shook off the bubbling desire to be ornery and shoved the ugly feelings at his sore joints as revenge.

  
Erwin was hunched over the stove, sunlight tearing through his white button-down to illuminate the muscles of his own back.  Levi took in his dress pants and bit down on a disappointed frown.

  
“It’s Saturday,” he said.

  
Erwin jumped, shoulders tensing.  Then he turned and smiled warmly when he saw Levi stalking to sit at their kitchen table, tucking his knees up to his chest so his feet were balanced on the chair, far above the freezing floor.  He should have worn socks.

  
“Nice sweats,” Erwin said, eyeing how large his own pajama pants were on Levi.

  
“Nice suit,” Levi said, less gently.

  
Erwin’s smile faltered and he held out a mug of tea, brows raised, crumpling on a puppy-like plea.

  
Levi narrowed his eyes and held his head high.  “That doesn’t change the fact that this is Saturday.”  But he was already reaching for the tea with cold fingers barely peaking out of the sleeves of one of Erwin’s ratty college sweatshirts.

  
“You look like you belong in prison,” Erwin said, like he found it appealing.  His mouth quirked.

  
“I will if you keep working on weekends.”

  
Erwin fell silent for a moment, turning to pour himself a large mug of coffee.  It was the one Mike had given him last Christmas.  The mug glowed a painful, aggressive shade of purple, and was emblazoned with “World’s No. 1 Dad” in equally harsh white letters.  Mike had added “ _-dy_ ” to the end of the word “Dad” in a white DIY decorating marker he’d borrowed from Levi.  Erwin loved that godawful mug.

  
His sides expanded to pull his dress-shirt tight on a sigh and he turned to Levi with his forehead wrinkles carving into deep grooves beneath the morning light.

  
Levi’s stomach rolled and he wanted belatedly to swallow back his biting remark.  Maybe heap it with the ugly feelings at the base of his tight, aching back.  He wanted Erwin to gather him up in his big arms and cover Levi with his whole body, pressing him down to the bed and leaving him feeling full and safe, and perhaps Levi should have said so, but instead he’d opened his mouth a pitiful whine had dribbled out.   _It’s Saturday_.  He clenched his teeth and looked down at his own plain mug, not saying anything as Erwin came to sit across from him.

  
“Levi,” Erwin said softly.  The chair creaked as Erwin leaned across the table.

  
Levi glanced up.  The sunlight turned Erwin’s eyes to glaciers and his hair to molten gold.  Levi sighed.  

  
“Sorry,” he muttered, looking away from Erwin’s tense, apologetic eyes.  His gaze tripped down over Erwin morning-swollen lips and then over his neck where his pulse thrummed visibly.  He hadn’t buttoned his shirt all the way and trails of honey hair dripped down over his chest.

  
“Hey,” Erwin said quietly, leaning forward further and reaching for Levi’s chin.  Levi could see his nipples, soft and plump in their warmth, where his shirt fell open.  Erwin had nipples that were full like his lips and Levi could reach them when Erwin covered his body with his own, settling between Levi’s legs and curling over his body to scatter kisses in his hair.

  
Levi sighed again and rested his chin in Erwin hand.

  
“I’m nearly done with this case,” Erwin said.  He ran his thumb along Levi’s cheek.  Levi’s face felt hot.  He made himself look at Erwin’s expression, surprised to find him looking faintly amused.  

  
Levi turned to bite the thick muscle between his thumb and forefinger.  “Shut up,” he said, taking Erwin’s hand from his face and wrapping it back around Erwin’s _Dad(dy)_ mug.

  
“I really am.  We should win this one,” Erwin murmured, taking a sip of coffee.  His eyes crinkled over the top of the mug as Levi’s gaze skipped from his chest to his throat and back to his eyes.

  
“Shut up,” Levi said again.

  
Erwin set the mug down and smiled.  “I’ll be done by next Friday,” he said.  Levi couldn’t stand the quiet, regretful undercurrent in his tone and swallowed all his heat-seeking self pity.  He shoved his face into his mug and took several long, scalding gulps.

  
“Will Mike be there today?” he asked, wincing at the burn in his chest.

  
Erwin tilted his head.  “He said he’s bringing me lunch.”

  
“Fine.”  Levi nodded curtly, and then shivered.  The hot tea didn’t reach his mottled blueish, frigid toes.

  
Erwin frowned.  “Cold under all those layers?  I know for a fact that those sweats are warm.  Or I used to, before someone stole them.”

  
Levi rolled his eyes and shifted to put his feet in Erwin’s lap under the table.  Erwin flinched and hissed.  He wrapped his hands around Levi’s toes.  Levi considered the fact that Erwin’s hands were the size of his feet and shuddered again.

  
“Be right back,” Erwin said abruptly.

  
Levi swallowed a whine as Erwin gently deposited his feet on the cold floor and strode briskly out of the room.  Levi listened to his heavy steps on the stairs.  He curled his feet back up under his body.  At least Mike would make sure Erwin ate enough.  

  
He was mulling over the possibility of baking something to kill time that afternoon when Erwin loped back into the room and dropped to his knees gracefully beside Levi’s chair.  Levi startled with a roll of heat up his spine.

  
“What the fuck?” he said mildly.

  
Erwin patted his thighs.  “Put ‘em here,” he said, just as softly.  In one hand he had a pair of his own thick woolen socks.  Levi swallowed and turned to face Erwin, gingerly placing his aching feet in Erwin’s lap.  

  
“Next Friday,” Erwin said again, putting the socks on the floor next to himself and picking up one of Levi’s feet.  He pressed his thumbs to the ball of Levi’s feet.  Levi bit back a mousey squeak.  Erwin brought his foot to his mouth and kissed his toes, nibbling with a faint grin when Levi failed to swallow another whining breath.

  
Levi squirmed.  “That’s gross,” he said half-heartedly.

  
Erwin pressed his mouth to the space where his thumbs had just pressed insistently.  “Friday,” he murmured.

  
Levi twitched.  “Erwin, it’s _fine_.”  He could see down Erwin’s shirt again from this angle, sleepy nipples and soft gold hair, and his feet looked tiny resting on Erwin’s thighs as Erwin carefully rolled his own sock up over the foot he’d just kissed.  His belly burned with tea and sight Erwin’s big body between his legs.  

  
The sock came halfway up Levi’s shins.  That made Erwin smile.  “Next one,” he murmured and scooped up Levi’s other foot, rubbing it and kissing across the arch, biting Levi’s heel.

  
Levi laughed, breathy and stuttering.  “You’re going to be late.”

  
“It’s Saturday,” Erwin returned, slightly raising a brow.  “You can’t be late on a Saturday.”  He finished carefully swaddling Levi’s foot in wool and let his feet rest limply on his thighs again.  He looped his fingers around Levi’s ankles.  “What do you want to do next weekend?”

  
Levi looked at him, kneeling on the floor at his feet.  He rolled his eyes.  Erwin smiled, somewhat smug and rested his cheek on Levi’s thigh.

  
“Stop teasing me,” Levi muttered, running his fingers through Erwin’s hair.

  
Erwin turned to nip his thigh.  “Tell me,” he said, nuzzling Levi and closing his eyes.

  
Levi gnawed his lip, embarrassed.  Then he bent to bury his face in Erwin’s hair.  “I want you to be in bed when I wake up,” he breathed, swallowing hard after and tugging Erwin’s hair to lessen the delicacy of what he’d said.

  
Erwin froze.  He squeezed his eyes tight.  “Okay,” he said, softly enough that Levi might not have heard if he wasn’t a breath away.

 

* * *

 

When Erwin returned home at nine o’clock that evening, his sick feeling over having been gone far too long that day churned into something sticky when he inhaled sugar and cinnamon in the entryway. 

  
Erwin padded through to the kitchen to find sheets of cookies cooling.  He shoved a hand up through his hair and then crammed one in his mouth.  Sticky sweet, burbling sickly in his stomach.

  
Erwin found Levi asleep on the couch, the muted television flickering grey-tones over his face.  The stolen sweatshirt had rucked up to his ribs, and the sweatpants, which were far too large in the waistband, had slipped down to leave the curve of his hips naked.  Wild black curls crept out of the waist band, the head of his soft cock peaking out and resting against Levi’s forearm where he’d shoved a hand inside the sweatpants to cup himself in his sleep.  Erwin bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if Levi would have even woken up if his sleepy cock had slipped out entirely.  Probably not.   _Baby_ , he thought, wanting.

  
There was a smudge of flour on Levi’s cheek.

  
Erwin knelt and brushed his hair back, nosing along his cheek and licking the flour off.

  
Levi whined.

  
“Tired?” Erwin said against the corner of his mouth.

  
Levi just huffed a heavy, sweet-scented breath against Erwin’s mouth.  He brought his hand up to brush Erwin’s jaw.  It smelled musky and warm like his cock.

  
Erwin kissed him, cupping his face and smiling against his mouth at the clumsy way Levi tried to match his movements.

  
“I supposed that’s a yes,” Erwin mumbled, dragging kisses up Levi’s nose.

  
“Erwin,” Levi said with a strange, pouting insistence.

  
_Baby_.  “Yes?”  Erwin could feel heat trickling up his spine and he was torn between wanting to curl up on the couch with Levi, and carrying him to bed and sucking his sleepy cock until he passed out.  He liked it when Levi tossed his legs over Erwin’s shoulders and squeezed his head a little too tight between his thighs, letting Erwin lay at the end of the bed and take his time, slipping in and out of sleep.  At night, Erwin had time.  

  
“I’m so proud of you,” Levi continued drowsily, knocking Erwin out of his deliberation.

  
Erwin swallowed convulsively.  “I—”  He blinked hard.

  
Levi turned and tried to kiss him with his eyes still glued shut.  He missed, smearing a wet kiss across Erwin’s nose.  

  
“Damn,” Levi muttered.  “Missed.”  He sighed a gust of stale nutmeg-laced breath.  His head fell limp against Erwin’s palm, heavy.

  
Erwin pulled back with wide eyes.  Levi’s face scrunched and then he cracked an eye.  “Get back here,” he grumbled.  “Wasn’t done.”

  
He stretched out along the couch, belly exposed, sweats slipping down to reveal his half-hard cock. _Oh, baby_.

  
Erwin wiped a bit of gumminess from the corner of Levi’s eyes with his thumbs.  “Can we go to bed?” he asked.

  
Levi frowned.  “Are you tired?”

  
“No baby, I’m not,” Erwin said.  He reached to trail his fingers down Levi’s stomach.  His muscles shivered and his lips parted.  A little slippery pearl beaded and dripped down his erection.

  
Levi leaned up to sniff blindly at his mouth, pushing against the hand on his belly as he did so.  “Was it a good batch?”

  
Erwin hummed.  “Levi, I want you.”

  
“But was it?”

  
“ _Now_.”

  
Levi opened his eyes fully.  His gaze flickered to Erwin’s undone top buttons for what Erwin was sure was the twentieth time since the morning.  Erwin pressed his lips against a grin.  

  
Levi licked at his own mouth.  “Fine,” he said primly.

  
Erwin did carry him, like he’d imagined, certain Levi was more sweatsuit than human bundled up in his arms.

  
Levi left on the oversized wool socks while Erwin ate him out so slowly he made a little puddle beneath his own hips where he pressed himself a little helplessly against their sheets.  The feeling of Levi’s sock-clad feet digging into Erwin’s back muscles made Erwin huff a laugh and press his mouth hard to Levi’s hipbones.

  
Next weekend, he thought, they could do this in the sunlight.  Levi seemed to like that best.  Erwin liked whatever he could get.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry I haven't written much lately. I miss it and hope to get back to writing regularly soon <3 
> 
> I love you all.
> 
>  
> 
> (Oh, I also really love nipples. But I feel like, at this point, that's rather obvious.)


	24. Canonverse: Gently Angsty, Gently NSFW

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was a fill for the prompt "drenched while wearing white." Not sure why this turned out so angsty....
> 
> Just a wee one this time. ~500 words, gently nsfw. Canonverse.

 

The sun shower broke within sight of the wall.  Levi thought there was nothing beyond the walls as beautiful as the creature riding pell-mell ahead of him back towards captivity.

  
Levi distantly heard the screams for the gates to open, and the bells, and he knew his hair was dripping into his eyes, but for a moment there was nothing but the hoofbeats of his own horse and Erwin’s broad back, shirt clinging to muscle thick enough to mirror the flexing, soaked rump of his horse.  Levi wondered if Erwin ever wanted to spread his arms out while he rode, just because he was alive.

  
For now.

  
For now they both were and when Levi nearly steered his horse into Erwin’s, both slowing reluctantly under the gates, Erwin cast him a look that was all fire and blue skies.  He looked unbearably young with his hair plastered to his forehead and Levi didn’t want the crowds to see him like that.

  
Erwin grinned and made it worse.  “Not a bad expedition,” he said.  He meant they’d lost fewer than ever.

  
“Yeah,” Levi heard himself say, “not bad.”  Erwin’s white shirt was soaked through and his chest heaved to match his horse’s exhausted snorting breaths.

  
Erwin began to say something, his mouth going softer, and Levi gripped his reins, glancing forward at the crowd.  He couldn’t stand them seeing Erwin’s mouth like that—like it was breakable.  Levi knew how easily the pale pink could bloom with blood.

  
He thought of Erwin with his arms spread wide across his mattress, hands flexing at the covers.

  
Drenched in white sheets and sunlight, lips overripe with kisses.

  
A woman shrieked and threw herself in front of Erwin’s horse, refusing to move until he proved her daughter was alive.  Levi swallowed his tongue as Erwin’s eyes hardened like they’d never been full of light.  

  
The girl hadn’t made it.

  
Fewer casualties were still casualties.

  
And the ones they’d had were about to flay them both alive all over again and haunt their ringing ears.

  
Levi wanted to swallow Erwin’s tongue when he said he was sorry and bowed his head under the golden raindrops.

 

* * *

 

In the stables, amidst stinking horses, Erwin cast a different gaze at Levi.  It was dimmer, calculating, but it made Levi’s heart leap nonetheless.

  
“I could eat you alive, like that,” Erwin said in a low voice, casual as anything.  Something wry and tired twisted at the corners of his mouth.

  
“Like what?”

  
Erwin nodded at Levi’s shirt.  Levi hadn’t even noticed it getting wet easier.  He had no idea what the fuss was about when Erwin stood—all dripping, sturdy muscle—right there, but he wanted to drown in the slow, syrupy travel of Erwin’s gaze.  He raised a brow, trying to keep his tone casual as anything.  “Then do it.”

  
For a heartbeat, light flickered back into Erwin’s expression.  He offered Levi a grin.  It was too wolfish to be a real smile, but Levi knew to take what he could get.

  
He shivered in his soaked shirt.

 

* * *

 

Erwin pinned Levi to his bed, spread eagle.  They smelled like horse and sweat and the strange heaviness of sun showers.

  
“That would be a waste,” he said, nosing at Levi’s jaw and resting his teeth against Levi’s pulse.  

  
Levi didn’t think it would be.  He arched his back and offered his throat.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr @[kaguneko](https://kaguneko.tumblr.com) :)


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